Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass

[Stone]

Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass

St. Joseph in the Canon: An Innovation to Break Tradition

Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

Pope John XXIII’s decision to insert St. Joseph’s name in the Communicantes of the Canon of the Mass was the first of the Vatican II reforms to go into effect, as of December 8, 1962. This is generally understood as giving the highest honor to St. Joseph. But the purpose of the reform, as stated in the Decree that introduced it, was more prosaic: to serve as “a memorial and testament of the fruit of the Second Vatican Council.” (1)

It follows, therefore, that every time a priest uses St. Joseph’s name in the Canon, he is meant to salute Vatican II not only as an event but as a permanent reality in the life of the Church. At the same time, he is required to be an accessory to breaking the living continuity of a fixed Canon, which had remained unchanged since the 6th century.

John XXIII inserts St. Joseph in the Canon as a precedent for Vatican II changes

The substance of this reform lies not in honoring St. Joseph (who was and could still be fittingly honored in the liturgy by other means) but in accepting Vatican II as a break with the past.

Before the Liturgical Movement, altering the Canon to include St. Joseph was not considered feasible by any Pope prior to John XXIII, even though some had received petitions to this end. In the 19th century, Dom Guéranger summed up the Church’s constant position:

“St. Joseph is not mentioned here [in the Communicantes], no more than he is in the Confiteor, (2) because devotion to this great Saint was reserved for the latter days, and because just at first, in the earlier ages, the attention of the Church was more specially drawn to the Apostles and Martyrs, for all the honors of her worship.

"Later on, when the time for fixing the Canon came, Holy Church recoiled from re-handling and making modifications, even of smaller details, in a Liturgical Prayer fixed and consecrated by Christian Antiquity. With her ever wise discretion, Holy Church has limited the Saints’ names mentioned here.” (3)

The names of the Apostles and early Martyrs in the Communicantes who gave their lives for Christ were limited to two sets of 12 for mystical reasons related to the Holy Sacrifice, as Fr. Nikolaus Gihr explained in 1902:

“Here the record of the Apostles closes, that the holy number 12 be not exceeded. For, the number 12 is symbolical … of the Church of Christ in her completion.” (4) This reference is to the Heavenly Jerusalem described by St. John in Apocalypse 21, of which the Mass is a foretaste.


Incongruity of St. Joseph in the Canon

Inserting St. Joseph’s name distorts this biblical imagery by upsetting the carefully crafted numerical balance on which it rested, showing scant regard for the vision of the Apostle John, a key witness to the Crucifixion.

An attempt to dull the hyperdulia the Church gives to Our Lady as Queen of the Angels and the Saints

Besides being supernumerary, St. Joseph’s name does not fit into the traditional paradigm. The Saints mentioned in the Communicantes were part of the public ministry of Christ, suffered martyrdom or were Pontiffs on whom the Church in Rome was founded. On none of these counts does St. Joseph qualify for inclusion in the nomenclature of the Canon.

But there is a far more serious argument against Pope John’s innovation, one that touches on a subject completely objectionable to all Protestants – the pre-eminence of Our Lady on account of her privileges and prerogatives by which she outranks all the Angels and Saints.

This is reflected symbolically in the Communicantes where the Saints are named collectively, whereas Our Lady stands alone, as the Queen of Martyrs, at the head of the list. Although she is still named first in the 1962 Missal, the symbolism of exclusivity is compromised when St. Joseph, who is named together with her, is made to share the same pedestal as joint leader of the Martyrs and Saints.

But this clashes with the meaning of “in primis” (in the first place) in the Communicantes, understood as referring to the doctrine of hyperdulia or special veneration due to Our Lady alone. Moreover, it was not necessary to introduce this change in the Canon, as the absence of St. Joseph’s name did not indicate a lack of respect for this great Saint whose sublime virtues were already honored both in the liturgy and in many popular devotions.


Protestants gloated over Pope John’s innovation

There is even an ecumenical twist to placing St. Joseph in the Canon. While the standard Catholic response to this papal initiative was to see it as an honor to St. Joseph, some Protestants in dialogue with Rome perceived it as a diminution of hyperdulia to Our Lady in the interests of ecumenism.

Protestant theologian Karl Barth exulted over the addition of St. Joseph

That was the case with certain prominent Protestant theologians such as Karl Barth and Oscar Cullmann (one of the Protestant Observers at Vatican II) – not to mention Catholic dissidents like Fr. Hans Küng – who exerted great influence in the Ecumenical Movement and shared a visceral hatred of Mariology as “unbiblical.”

Immediately after John XXIII’s innovation, Barth stated in a 1962 letter to Cullmann: “What has been decided about St. Joseph greatly pleased me.” The reason for his delight was that it would act as a corrective to “excessive” veneration of Our Lady, with the result that “some mariological ideas would then, of course, require modification.” (5)

He expressed the same sentiments in a letter to Hans Küng dated 10 March 1967, where he stated his conviction that St. Joseph “is to be preferred to Our Lady with her crown of glory.” (6)

This odious attempt to demote Our Lady can be contrasted with Fr. Gihr’s full-blooded defence of Mary’s exalted place in the Communicantes:

“She was taken up to Heaven in body and soul and transfigured in glory; there she wears the most beautiful crown of honor and power. As on earth she excelled all creatures by the fullness of grace, the wealth of virtues, so in the next life she surpasses all the citizens of Heaven by the splendor and magnificence of her glory.

“Because she was on earth the most humble, the most pure, the most devout, the most loving, the most sorrowful, therefore, she is now in Heaven the most glorious and the most happy.” (7)

The question that hovers over this reform is why it was implemented when one of its inevitable side-effects was to provide a degree of satisfaction for Protestants, who came to the Council in the expectation that the Church should reconfigure her doctrines to suit them.

But, the Conciliar Popes did not believe in taking precautions when dealing with dangerous adversaries, or in heeding the old adage that, when supping with the Devil, one should not only use a long spoon but stay out of pitchfork range as well.


The Obviously Blind & the Blindingly Obvious

While many Catholics were oblivious to the significance of Pope John’s innovation, Hans Küng, writing during the Council itself, was quick to point out that:

“This must surely be a sign to the Vatican Council that it need have no fear of altering or reforming the Canon.” (8)

Küng was right in one respect. What John XXIII had started, Paul VI would later bring to fruition. Contempt for the law and, consequently, harm to the common good was the likely outcome of changing an immemorial tradition. This should have been evident to any of the Council Fathers who were trained in Thomistic principles.

St. Thomas had warned that any change in the law that abandons a custom diminishes the force and respect paid to the law. Even where a change in the law (e.g. putting St. Joseph in the Canon) carries some obvious benefit (increased honor), it will entail some harm to the common good, as custom is always a psychological help in the observance of laws.

There would be, as history has shown, a drastic ecclesiastical price to pay for changing the most sacrosanct part of the Mass. We need no further proof to vindicate St. Thomas’s profound insight than to consider the fate of the Canon, indeed of the Holy Mass itself, from 1962 onwards.


Continued


1. “Tanquam optatum mnemosynon et fructus ipsius Concilii” AAS 54, November 13, 1962, p. 873.
2. In the Dominican Rite, which dates back to the 13th century, the name of St. Dominic is mentioned in the Confiteor. But the custom survived intact under Quo Primum, which allowed the continuation of liturgies of more than 200 years’ usage. Putting St. Joseph in the Canon of the Roman Rite in 1962 is an entirely different matter and cannot be compared with the invocation of St. Dominic in the Confiteor of the Dominican Rite, which was approved by Pius V in 1570 on the grounds of venerable antiquity. Furthermore, the Dominican Rite Canon was identical to that of the Roman Rite.
3. Prosper Guéranger, Explanation of the Prayers and Ceremonies of Holy Mass: Taken from notes made at the conferences of Dom Prosper Guéranger Abbot of Solesmes, 1885, p. 41.
4. Nickolaus Gihr, The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, 1902, p. 615.
5. Dustin Resch, Barth's Interpretation of the Virgin Birth: A Sign of Mystery, Routledge, 2016, pp. 174-175 who quotes from letters to Oscar Cullmann and Hans Küng.
6. Karl Barth, Letters 1961-1968, T.& T. Clark Ltd, p. 245, quoted in Christian T. Collins Winn, John L. Drury, Karl Barth and the Future of Evangelical Theology, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2014.
7. N. Gihr, The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, p. 608.
8. Hans Küng, The Council in Action – Theological Reflections on The Second Vatican Council, Sheed and Ward, 1963, p. 143.
In fact, in 1962 during the first session of the Council, Küng wrote a “corrected” form of the Canon in which, among other things, he eliminated all the Saints from the Communicantes and also “Mysterium Fidei” from the Words of Consecration. His version of the Canon was published in 1963 in Wort und Wahrheit (Word and Truth), a Vienna-based journal that campaigned for the modernization of the Catholic Church. Apud H. Küng, ‘Das Eucharistiegebet: Konzil und Erneurerung der römischen Liturgie’ (The Eucharistic Prayer: The Council and the Renewal of the Roman Liturgy), Wort und Wahrheit, 18, 1963, pp. 102-107.

[Stone]

Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass
The Change in the 1962 Canon Presaged the Novus Ordo Mass
Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

The issue at the core of this innovation [of adding St. Joseph to the Canon] is whether the Pope was acting licitly in this regard, against the backdrop of a consensus among his Predecessors, upheld by a tradition of more than a millennium, that nothing should be added to or subtracted from the Canon of the Mass.

In the certain absence of a desire on the part of most Bishops at the Council to even consider any change in so venerable an institution, Pope John XXIII acted on his own initiative in placing St. Joseph in the Canon.


Consternation among the Council Fathers

One witness described the announcement as a “bombshell.” (1) Another stated that “Cardinal Montini later described this unexpected move as ‘a surprise for the Council from the Pope.’ ” (2)

Indeed, no one could have failed to notice that the Canon was instantly deprived of its essential characteristic: immutability.

Even the Anglican Observer, Bernard Pawley, hearing the speech by Bishop Albert Cousineau, (3) who requested this reform at the Council, (4) grasped its inherent message, namely, that “there must be no unchangeable sanctity about the form of words [in the Canon].” (5) He correctly understood its game-changing potential to destroy reverence for the integrity of the Canon of the Mass – a coup for the heirs of the Protestant Reformation.

Card. Roncalli and Card. Montini were allies, and ordered Bugnini to reform the Mass

Nor did most Bishops expect to witness a renunciation by the Pope of the scruple felt by his Predecessors at making the least alteration to it. In fact, support for the innovation among the Council Fathers was conspicuously low key. Although Bishop Cousineau mentioned a recent petition signed by many Church leaders, (6) only 3 Bishops were reported to have actually spoken in favor of it. (7) The Canon, however, cannot be subject to group interests, or altered for subjective reasons or by plebiscite.

In retrospect, Montini (as Paul VI) made this illuminating comment on 22 January 1968, in one of his many tête-à-têtes with Bugnini:

“You saw, didn’t you, what happened when St. Joseph’s name was introduced into the Canon? First, everyone was against it. Then, one fine morning Pope John decided to insert it and made this known; then, everyone applauded, even those who said they were opposed to it.” (8)

He had calculated shrewdly, as had John XXIII, that once an innovation was approved ‒ or a progressivist document was signed ‒ by the Pope, virtually all of the Bishops who previously opposed it would, as history has shown, become its staunchest defenders. What Pope Paul VI’s remark illuminates is the willingness of most conservative Bishops at the Council to prefer expediency to Tradition, purely for the sake of promoting a contrived show of unity with the Pope of the day, even when he stood in contradiction to it.


Where Does the Petition Come In?

There were many liturgists in the Liturgical Movement who had long been itching to destroy the immutability of the Canon because it represented continuity and permanence, and threatened their plans for liturgical reform. Bugnini, in particular, objected to the lack of “rubrical flexibility” and to the “monolithic” nature of the Canon, (9) while others, as we have seen, had been calling for its reform in various Liturgical Congresses held prior to Vatican II.

The Canon, a centuries-old  fixed formula of prayer

John XXIII’s innovation was an endorsement of the most radical reformers whose agenda was to alter the Canon so as to end its unchangeable nature. Under the camouflage of the petition, John XXIII could satisfy their demands without being seen to do so.

We will now consider a few further points which call into question the value and legitimacy of the entire project.

Some say that a single addition to the Canon is trivial, and that objectors must be small-minded, “Pharisaical” people with a penchant for keeping to the strict letter of the law. In fact, it matters crucially because the Canon is a fixed formula of prayer that flows directly from the lex orandi of the early Christian centuries. Its value consists in a liturgical restatement of the unchanging doctrine of the Mass as understood in the Church since the beginning of Christianity. Thus, it guarantees the truth of all the other prayers of the Mass.

Change the Canon, then nothing in the Mass would ever be firmly established or free from further interference.


A Changed Canon is No Canon

The word Canon came from the Greek kanon, which meant a reed or cane used as a measuring tool; figuratively it came to mean a norm, rule or standard of excellence which was both authoritative and binding. So, by its very name and nature, the Canon was set in metaphorical stone as the unchanging rule of prayer surrounding the confection of the Eucharist.

Fr. Nikolaus Gihr explained the reason for its immutability:

“As the Sacrifice, which the eternal High Priest offers on the altar to the end of ages, is and ever remains the same, so, in like manner the Canon, the ecclesiastical sacrificial prayer, in its sublime simplicity and venerable majesty, is and ever remains invariably the same.” (10)

That was the simple truth understood and defended by orthodox Catholics down the centuries. It would be simply unconscionable to change something that was considered to be “through its origin, antiquity and use, venerable and inviolable and sacred.” (11)

But, it was precisely this non-negotiable inflexibility that 20th century progressivist reformers wanted to remove as an obstacle to their plans. However, the Canon is not an instrument for supporting agendas or promoting personal wishes even if favored by a particular Pope.


Crossing the Red Line

Before John XXIII’s innovation, no Pope had ever ventured to introduce into the Canon an extraneous element, i.e., one that was not already in use in the early centuries of liturgical development. Not even Pope Gregory I (who, we are told, “added” extra words to the Hanc igitur of the Canon (12) in the 6th century) altered this tradition.

Our Lord appears to St. Gregory the Great while saying the Canon of the Mass

As Fr. Fortescue pointed out, the Hanc igitur was originally a variable prayer and Pope Gregory gave it a fixed formula, using prayers taken from the Mass itself. (13) Thus, there was no question of inserting a novelty into the Hanc igitur, for Pope Gregory I’s words were but a partial reduplication of prayers for the living and the dead found in other parts of the Mass. (14) These words, then, were not so much an addition as a replacement in one succinct phrase for all the individual intentions of the faithful that the priest formerly mentioned at this point in the Canon. (15)

Unlike John XXIII and the Vatican II Popes, Gregory I was an organizer, not an innovator.

We will now examine some of the weighty reasons – philosophical, theological and liturgical – for considering John XXIII’s innovation to be unjustified.

According to St. Thomas Aquinas, for an act to be right or reasonable it must not be inherently flawed, i.e., contain anything contrary to its nature. The Canon is unchangeable because it can in no way become other than it is without ceasing to be true to itself and becoming potentially subject to further change.

Once the principle of immutability had been breached by John XXIII in the Canon, everything else in the Mass becomes changeable, with the result that change is the only thing that becomes fixed. The 1962 Canon was, thus, the major impetus for the ever-evolving liturgies of the Novus Ordo.

Nor is it enough for an act to be good in one point only; it must be good in every respect. It would be wrong, for example, to destroy a basic good (the immutability of the Canon) for the purpose of bringing about another instance of a basic good (veneration of St. Joseph). Aquinas would have considered that “repugnant to right reason.”


The Scourge of Legal Positivism


Implicit in Pope John XXIII’s innovation is the notion that there was nothing intrinsically valuable about immutability as far as the Canon was concerned. The key fact remains that the immutable rule of prayer has been breached by a personal intervention of a Pope who refused to accept the constraints of all his Predecessors, preferring to be guided by his own predilections.

As in all cases of legal positivism, of which this is a classic example, it is simply assumed that any papal legislation is licit, not because it is rooted in reason or natural law, but because it is enacted by legitimate authority.

We have St. Thomas’s assurance that a just law must be reasonable or based in reason, and not merely in the will of the legislator. Therefore, the exercise of discretionary powers has to be reasoned, otherwise it is arbitrary.

When we consider that John XXIII was influenced by extraneous and irrelevant factors that were given in support of his decision – such as his own personal devotion to St. Joseph and the demands of pressure groups presented in the form of a petition – it is reasonable to assume that he was acting ultra vires and that his action was illicit.

A better way to honor St. Joseph would have been to restore his Octave abolished in 1956.


Continued


1. Henri Fesquet, the religious affairs correspondent for the Paris newspaper, Le Monde, and its special envoy in Rome, wrote: “A bombshell fell on the general congregation Tuesday. Cardinal Cicognani, Secretary of State, announced that the Pope has decided to insert the name of Saint Joseph after that of the Virgin Mary in the Canon of the Mass.” The Drama of Vatican II: The Ecumenical Council June 1962- December 1965, Random House, 1967, p. 69.
2. Ralph Wiltgen, The Rhine Flows Into the Tiber, Hawthorn Books, 1967, p. 45.
3. Canadian Bishop Albert Cousineau C.S.C. was Bishop of Cap Haitien, Haiti, and a former Rector of St Joseph’s Oratory, Montreal, which was one of several centres campaigning to have St Joseph’s name in the Canon of the Mass.
4. For a record of his speech (in Latin), see Synodalia, vol. 1, First Period, Part 2, 5 November 1962, Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1970, Congregatio Generalis XII, pp. 119-120.
5. Bernard C. Pawley, Observing Vatican II : The Confidential Reports of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Representative, Bernard Pawley, 1961-1964, Cambridge University Press, 2013, p. 153.
6. Their identities were not revealed. As part of an organized campaign, the petition was presented to Pope John XXIII in March 1962, which included signatures of Bishops and Archbishops, asking for the name of St. Joseph to be inserted into the Mass wherever the name of the Blessed Virgin is mentioned. Fr Ralph Wiltgen reported that “While examining these signatures, Pope John XXIII said, ‘Something will be done for St. Joseph.’” (The Rhine Flows into the Tiber, p. 46)
7. These were Auxiliary Bishop Ildefonso Sansierra of San Juan de Cuyo, Argentina, Bishop Albert Cousineau, C.S.C. of Cap Haitien, Haiti, and Bishop Petar Cule, of Mostar, Yugoslavia.
8. A. Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy 1948-1975, p. 369, note 30.
9. Ibid., p. 448.
10. Nikolaus Gihr, The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, St Louis: Herder, 1902, p. 581. Fr. Gihr added that “only on the greatest feasts are a few additions made in order to harmonize with the spirit and change of the ecclesiastical year.”
11. Ibid., p. 579.
12. These words were diesque nostros in tua pace disponas (and order our days in Thy peace).
13. Fortescue, The Mass, p. 155.
14. E.g., the Commemoration of the Dead; also the Libera nos and the Nobis quoque, which speak of peace in this life and salvation in the next.
15. In earlier times, it was customary for the priest or deacon to read aloud the names and intentions of some of the faithful.

[Stone]

Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass
The 1962 Canon Precipitated a Crisis
Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

What started as a campaign by devotees of St. Joseph for increased liturgical honors entered a whole new dimension in 1962 with the “bombshell” announcement by Pope John XXIII to include St. Joseph’s name in the Canon of the Mass.

From the unchangeable Canon Missae to the ‘Eucharistic Prayer’ in various forms

From then on, the word Canon could not properly be used in its old sense, since the invariable rule no longer applied. It was obviously a misnomer as it now reflected the drive for change, fulfilling the exact opposite purpose for which it was originally intended.

Quite logically, the reformers soon dropped the name Canon and, after making further changes, re-named it “Eucharistic Prayer 1.” But even before the New Mass, the concept of the Roman Canon had been destroyed. Bugnini wrote exultantly:

“The concept of a liturgy tied to rubrics and ceremonies, fixed in its formulas and divorced from reality has definitely given place to a dynamic concept of worship, alive and vital, biblical and pastoral, traditional and contemporary; anchored to a healthy past, but straining towards the future. And from this onward march, indicated by the Council and effected by the Consilium, the Church is not going to deviate.” (1)

So, Bugnini had his way after all, with grave implications for future reforms.


Confiteor before Communion

This Confiteor, together with the Absolution, had been in use centuries before the Council of Trent and was mandated in the rubrics of the Tridentine Missal to be said before the distribution of Holy Communion to the faithful. (2) In spite of its great antiquity, it was suppressed by Pope John XXIII in 1960 (3) as part of the “simplification” of the Roman Rite planned by Pius XII’s Liturgical Commission which, as we have seen, was merely an echo-chamber for progressivist opinion.

Fr. Josef Jungmann, one of the advisors to that Commission, termed the Confiteor before Communion “a rather unnecessary repetition,” (4) given that the Confiteor had already been said twice at the beginning of the Mass – first by the priest and then by the server.

Servers say the Confiteor representing all present at the Holy Mass

But Jungmann’s opinion was a gross mischaracterization, as none of these Confiteors was either unnecessary or a mere repetition. Each had its allotted space in the scheme of the liturgy for a particular purpose: to safeguard the meaning of the Mass and the Priesthood from misinterpretation.

• The first Confiteor is recited by the priest to express his own unworthiness to offer the Holy Sacrifice;
  

• The second is said by the Ministers (or server at Low Mass in their stead) to dispose themselves and all present to assist at it worthily;
  

• The third expresses sorrow for sin on the part of those intending to receive Holy Communion, and is part of a separate rite taken from the Rituale Romanum for the purpose of administering the Sacrament to the faithful. (5) It is significant that this Confiteor (followed by Ecce Agnus Dei and the threefold Domine non sum dignus) was not included in the Order of Mass itself, (6) for the simple reason that only the priest’s Communion is necessary for the completion of the Sacrifice. (7)
  

Confiteor before Communion not redundant

Each of the three Confiteors is a discrete entity with its own raison d’être, employed for specific theological and spiritual reasons, and was necessary within its own frame of reference. (8)

Acts of humility such as the Confiteor were distasteful to Protestant and Progressivist reformers

The purpose was, first, to distinguish the priesthood of the ordained minister from the lay members of the congregation and, secondly, to make clear the distinction between the Sacrifice of the Mass celebrated by the priest, and the Sacrament of the Eucharist received by the faithful. Mgr. Gromier pointed out: “the enormous difference between the two uses of the Confiteor.” (9) It makes no sense, therefore, to say that the Confiteor before Communion is an “unnecessary repetition” of previously recited prayers.

Besides, these distinctions needed to be made clear because they were the target for attack by the 16th century Protestant Reformers and were rejected by progressivist liturgists of the 20th who paved the way for the Novus Ordo Mass via the 1962 Missal.

In 1943, Archbishop Conrad Gröber of Fribourg revealed the real reason for the desire to suppress the Confiteor before Communion. In his critical Memorandum circulated to the Bishops of the German-speaking countries and also to Pope Pius XII, (10) he objected that the reformers “presented the Communion of the faithful as an integral part of the Mass.” (11) This indicates that receptiveness to Protestant ideas about the Mass was, to use a phrase of Pope Pius X, beginning to spread into “the very veins and heart of the Church.” (12)


Antecedents of the suppression of the Confiteor

We can trace the development of this non-Catholic theological principle, starting from the early leaders of the Liturgical Movement – notably Frs. Pius Parsch (13) and Josef Jungmann (14) in the 1940s – through the Missal of John XXIII, up to and including Paul VI’s New Mass.

Fr. Josef Löw: ‘The Confiteor before Communion will have to disappear’

The Confiteor before Communion was obviously a major issue for the reformers, as it was featured in all the main international Liturgical Congresses from Maria Laach (1951) to Assisi (1956) (15) (See here)). Its abolition was sought in order to give the impression that the people’s Communion was as much part of the Mass as any other element. This is clear from a speech given shortly before the Lugano Congress (1953) by Fr. Josef Löw, the Vice-Relator of the Congregation of Rites and member of Pius XII’s Liturgical Commission, in which he stated:

“At the Communion, the Confiteor and the Misereatur are expected to disappear … the Communion [of the people] is, after all, a part of the Mass.” (16)

This was the general opinion of the progressivist reformers, and Pius XII took the first tentative step in granting their wishes by eliminating the Confiteor and Absolution in the Maundy Thursday Mass in the reformed Holy Week of 1956. (17) In so doing, he allowed a heterodox notion of the reformers to promote itself as an influential force in the liturgy.

John XXIII’s reform went much further: he extended it to every celebration of the Mass (except on Good Friday and at Ordinations).


Effects of the reform

Unlike the insertion of St. Joseph in the Canon, recited inaudibly by the priest, the suppression of this Confiteor was a highly conspicuous change, evident to the whole congregation. As such, its effect on the faithful was bound to be significant.

When John XXIII abolished the Confiteor before Communion on the spurious grounds of “simplification,” he undermined a teaching of the Church of which this immemorial custom was the external and visible sign: only the priest’s Communion is required for the completion of the Sacrifice, and belongs not to the essence but to the integrity of the Mass.

A ‘banquet’ Mass where even youth hand out communion

It follows that this Confiteor should remain in place as evidence that the people’s Communion is not an integral part of the Mass. Its omission aids the impression ‒ enthusiastically encouraged by the reformers ‒ that the Mass is fundamentally a Communion Service, (18) and that the Communion of the people is as much part of the Mass as the priest’s. Consequently, it is commonly assumed today that if one cannot receive Communion, there is no point in going to Mass at all.

John XXIII’s ill-conceived reform was an identifiable element in facilitating widespread doctrinal confusion about what the Mass really is, and smoothed the way for the reformers to gain acceptance for their “Banquet theory,” which predominates today.

After years of Orwellian double-think in which both the Mass and Communion are equally called “the Eucharist,” few can be expected to tell the difference between the Sacrifice of the Mass per se and the people’s reception of Holy Communion during it.


An Intentional Omission

When we consider this end result and go backwards to 1962, it becomes clear how and why this subtle elision of terms – and consequent confusion about the meaning of the Mass – is connected with the suppression of the Confiteor before Communion.

John XXIII was not unaware that what he was omitting was pertinent to a correct understanding of the Mass. The reformers, for their part, had a specific motive for its removal: to change the doctrine of the Mass as the Holy Sacrifice offered by a priest on the altar to a meal shared among everyone “gathered around the table,” with the emphasis on the supposedly “essential” role the assembly plays in “celebrating the Eucharist.”

Thus, in this one reform, two deceptions were combined – not only hiding the truth about the Mass but also promoting a falsity to be believed as truth.

There is no suggestion here that the suppression of the Confiteor before Communion single-handedly caused a doctrinal crisis. But given the antecedents and consequences of this reform, no one can reasonably deny that it was a significant contributory factor in bringing it about, or claim that it was a harmless example of “simplification” of the Roman Rite.

Continued

1. A. Bugnini, ‘The Consilium and Liturgical Reform’, The Furrow, March 19, 1968, p. 177. The Furrow was an Irish theological journal founded in 1950 which, as its title suggests, broke new ground. It spearheaded the liturgical reform in Ireland. Interestingly, its Editor, Fr. J. G. McGarry, observed in 1956 when Pius XII’s Holy Week reforms came into effect: “There is not yet in Ireland any coherent group advocating the Liturgy, or any sign of the emergence of such a group.” (‘The Liturgy in Ireland,’ Worship, vol. XXXI, no. 7, 1956/ 1957, p. 409) But that situation would soon be changed with the top-down, dictatorial imposition of the liturgical reform.
2. Ritus servandus in celebratione Missae, X, 6.
3. Sacred Congregation of Rites, Novum Rubricarum § 503, A.A.S. 52, July 26, 1960, p. 680.
4. Josef Jungmann, Mass of the Roman Rite, vol. 2, p. 373.
5. Up until the modern age, Catholics did not always receive Communion during Mass; it was sometimes distributed before or after Mass. Whatever the arrangement, it was preceded by a separate rite, which was contained not in the Missal, but in the Roman Ritual, the liturgical book that contains the rites for the Sacraments.
6. They are found only in the Rubrics of the altar Missal (see Note 2), which, unlike hand missals for the laity, is the only authoritative version. It was only in 1965 that Ecce Agnus Dei and the threefold Domine non sum dignus were first incorporated into the text of the Roman Missal. In this Missal, the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar (including the Confiteor) were made optional, and the Confiteor before Communion was missing, while the priest simply said “Body of Christ” to each of the communicants.
In the Novus Ordo Mass, the Confiteor was reduced to a skeletal form, totally vernacularized, recited communally by priest and people, and made optional among a variety of formulas. The Ecce Agnus Dei contains the abstruse phrase: “Happy are those who are called to His Supper,” and there is no distinction between the Domine non sum dignus of the priest and the laity, as it is recited aloud only once in the New Mass simultaneously by all present.
7. The expression “the Communion integrates the Sacrifice” refers only to the priest’s Communion: it does not apply to the Communion of the people present at Mass. For, the Sacrifice is integral even if none of the people communicates sacramentally. Council of Trent, Session XXII, Chapter 6; Pius XII, Mediator Dei, 1947, §112: “the integrity of the sacrifice only requires that the priest partake of the heavenly food. Although it is most desirable that the people should also approach the holy table, this is not required for the integrity of the Sacrifice.”
8. There is a subtle but significant difference between the Indulgentiam prayers of the Confiteors. At the foot of the altar, the priest asks God for “pardon, absolution and remission of our sins” (peccatorum nostrorum), but before the Communion of the faithful, he prays for the remission of “your sins” (peccatorum vestrorum), i.e., of those about to receive the Sacrament.
9. L. Gromier, Lecture given in Paris in 1960, published in ‘La Semaine Sainte Restaurée,’ in Opus Dei, 2, 1962.
10. See here.
11. ‘Memorandum of His Excellency Mgr., Groeber,’ La Maison-Dieu, 7, 1946, p. 101.
12. Pius X, Pascendi, 1907.
13. With regard to the Confiteor before Communion, he stated: “since the server says it at the beginning of the Mass in the name of the people, it should not be here repeated.” Pius Parsch, The Liturgy of The Mass, with a Foreword by John J. Glennon, Archbishop of St. Louis, B. Herder Book Co., St Louis, Missouri, 1940, p. 312.
14. J. Jungmann rejected the Confiteor before Communion as an “unnecessary” intrusion, claiming that “the Communion of the faithful” is “the natural conclusion of the Mass,” thus implying that it belonged to the nature of the Mass itself which would not be complete without it. J. Jungmann, Mass of the Roman Rite, vol. 1, p. 160.
15. At Maria Laach (1951), it was proposed that “when Holy Communion is distributed during Mass, the Confiteor and its following prayers should be omitted” because they are part of “an independent rite for the distribution of Communion outside Mass.” (La Maison-Dieu, n. 37, 1954, p. 131); at Sainte-Odile, France (1952), it was proposed that “the Confiteor, Misereatur and Indulgentiam be omitted before the distribution of Holy Communion during Mass.” (La Maison-Dieu 37, 1954, p. 133); at Lugano (1953), the proposal was “no Confiteor etc., at Communion time.” (H.A. Reinhold, Bringing the Mass to the People, 1960, p. 105); and at Assisi (1956) all the proposals of the previous Liturgical Congresses were subsumed.
16. J. Löw, ‘Die Liturgische Reform des Sacrum Triduum,’ Heiliger Dienst, 7, Salzbourg, 1953, p. 91 quoted in La Maison-Dieu, 37, 1954, p. 126.
17. Ordo Hebdomadae Sanctae (Order of Holy Week) 1956, Holy Thursday, Chapter II Solemn Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper, § 29
18. This so-called “Banquet theory” was espoused by many 20th century liturgists, and is still being promoted in Novus Ordo circles by pastors who mislead the faithful into believing that “the Mass is a Meal.” According to that view, the essence of the Sacrifice lies not in Christ’s self-offering to the Father, but solely in the people’s Communion. In spite of the fact that this false notion was condemned by the Council of Trent (Session 22, Canon 1), it is extremely prevalent in the Church since Vatican II, and finds full expression in the Novus Ordo Mass.

[Stone]

Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass
How the 1962 Missal Acquired Its Calendar Reform
Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

Historical evidence shows that the changes made by Pope John XXIII to the General Roman Calendar in 1960 (1) were a continuation and extension of the work of the Commission set up by Pius XII. The schema for the reform of the Calendar had already been drawn up in 1951 by two of its members: Fr. Löw under the supervision of Fr. Antonelli. (2)

Calendar of Saints - October, 15th c.

At the instigation of Fr. Bea (also a member of Pius XII’s Commission), the same schema was forwarded to the members and consultors of Vatican II’s Preparatory Commission on the Liturgy (3) – to which John XXIII appointed Fr. Bugnini as its Secretary in 1960.

We can conclude, therefore, that Bugnini was placed in this influential position specifically to co-ordinate the team work in the revolutionary cause of restructuring the Roman liturgy. Moreover, he was hailed as the guiding spirit who organized the Preparatory Liturgical Commission’s agenda and steered it in a progressivist direction. (4)

As most of the 1960 Commission members were in varying degrees supporters of liturgical revolution – some, indeed, were formidable adversaries of Tradition (5) – this Calendar reform bears the hallmarks of manipulation by a group of “interested parties” who were in the process of achieving their long-term goal of destroying the Church’s ancient traditions.

Space does not allow a full treatment of the details and scope of the 1960 Calendar reform, which was incorporated into the 1962 Missal. We will here consider only its most salient feature – the elimination of selected feast days from the Liturgical Year.

To try to establish a balance, with due proportionality, between the Temporal Cycle (feasts of Our Lord, Sundays and Ferias) and the Sanctoral Cycle (the Proper of the Saints) is one thing; John XXIII’s reform, however, is quite another. It was but the latest manifestation of the reformers’ belief in what they called “simplification” of the Roman Rite, but which might more appropriately be termed “liturgical cleansing” of those elements of the Rite of which they personally disapproved.

Here is our first example.


Abolition of the Chair of St. Peter feast at Rome

From the 4th century until 1960, the feast of the Chair of St. Peter was celebrated twice yearly, under different titles – the Chair of St. Peter at Rome (18 January) (6) and the Chair of St. Peter at Antioch (22 February). The two Feasts were included in the Tridentine Calendar, though they both preceded the Council of Trent by many centuries.

At the altar dedicated to the Cathedra of Peter in St. Peter's Basilica, an Anglican service was led by Protestant archbishop David Moxon, center, 

with the participation of the Vatican's Archbishop Roche, left, using the Book of Common Prayer

In this way, the Church acknowledged in her liturgy the importance of the seat of the Petrine Ministry – symbolized by a Chair – in both of these geographic locations where St. Peter served as Bishop. But as the January 18 feast of the Chair of St. Peter is that of the foundation of the See of Rome, it gives fitting liturgical testimony to the primacy of honor and jurisdiction attached to the Bishop of Rome.

In 1960, however, Pope John XXIII abolished it. As for its counterpart in February, the feast was saved, but its title was altered to exclude any reference to Antioch: it was renamed the “Chair of Saint Peter Apostle.”


Neither Rome nor Antioch

Not only has the 1962 Missal a gaping hole where a feast of major importance should be, but the reformed Calendar lacks any marker indicating where the center of the Church and its teaching authority were historically seated. As a result, the See of Peter, i.e., the seat of government of the universal Church, appears somewhat surreal, an abstract idea disconnected from any geographical location. Henceforth, the Chair could be made to say or do anything the “puppeteer” Popes wanted.

As Christ the King must have dominion over the Church and the world, Providence has disposed that He should not only have His Vicar on earth to rule in His Name, but also a tangible, material throne located in Rome. A relic, traditionally held to be the actual Chair from which St. Peter taught in Rome, is preserved in a sumptuous monument, the imposing bronze reliquary of Bernini, over the altar in the apse of St. Peter’s Basilica.


An Ecumenically Sensitive Issue

Few issues in the History of the Church have been more acrimoniously challenged by heretics and schismatics than the primacy of Peter and the See of Rome. As the Church had established this feast day to celebrate the universal jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, particularly his magisterial authority in proclaiming doctrine ex cathedra, i.e., with infallibility, it was an obvious source of embarrassment for those promoting “ecumenism.”

During the Council of Trent, Pope Paul IV extended the feast of the Chair of St. Peter at Rome to the universal Church, (7) in response to the 16th century Protestant reformers’ rejection of the primacy of the Roman Pontiff. In fact, they even denied that St. Peter was ever in Rome – because it did not say so in the Bible – or that he had any successors as Bishop of Rome, in spite of the incontestable evidence from historical sources.

Here we touch on the real reason why the feast had to be abolished and any mention of Rome expunged from the title. As Fr. Hans Küng remarked:

“If Catholic worship is successfully refashioned in a more ecumenical form, the effect on the whole movement towards reunion with separated Christians will be decisive.” (8)

The Primacy of Ecumenism

Given that the January 18 feast was abolished so as not to offend the Protestants, Küng’s predictions were fulfilled in the most blatantly sacrilegious manner – impossible for most Catholics even to imagine in 1960.

A milestone of ecumenism: Anglican Evensong sung at the Altar of St. Peter in the Vatican, March 2017

In March 2017, an Anglican service of Evensong, based on Cranmer’s 1662 Book of Common Prayer, was celebrated at the altar of the Chair of St. Peter in Rome, with the participation of Archbishop Arthur Roche, Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. (9)

Let us not be persuaded that the abolition of the Chair of St. Peter at Rome was undertaken for the sake of “simplification” of the Calendar. Pope John XXIII’s suppression of the feast and Archbishop Roche’s liturgical sharing with Anglicans were conducted in the same “ecumenical” spirit. The former was a clear repudiation of Paul IV’s efforts to defend the Papacy from Protestant attacks during the Reformation; and the latter, a communicatio in sacris, (10) was an indefensible desecration of a Catholic altar dedicated to the first Pope.

The absurdity of these ecumenical gestures of “unity” when they involve Anglicans lies in the fact that the very reason the Church of England was established in the first place was for the purpose of resisting the universal jurisdiction of the Pope, represented by the Chair of St Peter in Rome. (11)

In 1967, in a speech that evinced no gratitude whatsoever for the gift of the Papacy from Christ to St. Peter and his Successors, Paul VI denigrated the Papacy as an obstacle to be cast aside, as if Our Lord had given a defective gift to His Bride, the Church:

“The Pope, as we well know, is undoubtedly the greatest obstacle on the road to unity.” (12)

It is obvious that he was not alluding to that perpetual Catholic unity symbolized in the Chair of St. Peter in Rome and fully honored in the Tridentine Missal. His words were eagerly construed by progressivists as a signal to re-found and refashion the Petrine Primacy for the sake of “ecumenism.” (13)


The Papacy trampled underfoot by Vatican II Popes

As for the traditional Papacy, it was kicked into the long grass to be ignored or forgotten. Since Vatican II, it has undergone a profound “collegial” makeover, whereby the Popes themselves have gradually surrendered their powers of government to Episcopal Conferences. No wonder the Papal Primacy over the whole Church has become weak and almost paralyzed.

John XXIII’s “ecumenical” reform can be seen as the curtain-raiser to this main full-length tragedy. What a contrast with the Papacy of Pope St. Leo the Great (440-461), which was one continuous, unrelenting defense of the Chair of St. Peter in Rome as the divinely appointed guarantee that the truth of the Gospels is faithfully transmitted down the centuries. (14)

The omission of this feast constitutes a loss to the Church’s lex orandi and weakens the liturgical expression of a central doctrine of the Catholic Faith. It may please Protestants and progressivists, but it dampens the traditional Catholic veneration for the Roman See generated by the former feast day.

To quote Dom Guéranger:

“The children of the Church have a right to feel a special interest in every solemnity that is kept in memory of St. Peter”. (15)

This, of course, includes the feast of the Chair of St. Peter in Rome, but those who follow the 1962 Missal are unlikely even to know of its existence.


Continued

1. These changes were mandated on July 23, 1960, by John XXIII in his motu proprio Rubricarum instructum, and were incorporated into the 1962 Missal.
2. Sacred Congregation of Rites, Memoria Sulla Riforma Liturgica: Supplemento III - Materiale Storico, Agiografico, Liturgico per la Riforma del Calendario, published in 1951 for private circulation among Commission members and selected reformers.
3. Bugnini confirmed that the schema of the Preparatory Commission was, with few modifications, basically the same as the Liturgy Constitution passed by the Council Fathers in 1963 (A. Bugnini, Notitiae, n. 70, February 1972, pp. 33-34).
4. The Dominican Fr. Pierre-Marie Gy, one of the consultors to the Preparatory Commission on the Liturgy, described Bugnini as “a happy choice as Secretary” on the grounds that “he had been Secretary of the Commission for reform set up by Pius XII. He was a gifted organizer and possessed an open-minded, pastoral spirit. Many people noted how, with Cardinal Cicognani, he was able to imbue the discussion with the liberty of spirit recommended by Pope John XXIII” (Apud A. Flannery, Vatican II: The Liturgy Constitution, Dublin: Sceptre Books, 1964, p. 20). Emphasis added.
5. Most of the members were well-known activists in the Liturgical Movement: Frs. Romano Guardini, Aimon-Marie Roguet, Bernard Capelle, Josef Jungmann and Mario Righetti (the last three having served as consultors of Pius XII’s Liturgical Commission); the consultors of the 1960 Commission were also prominent reformers including: Frs. Frederick McManus, Bernard Botte, Godfrey Diekmann, Pierre-Marie Gy, Johannes Hofinger (a disciple of Josef Jungmann), Pierre Jounel, Aimé-Georges Martimort, Cipriano Vagaggini, Balthasar Fischer and Johannes Wagner, founder and director of the Liturgical Institute of Trier, Germany, in 1947.
6. This was the date given in the ancient manuscripts, particularly the “Martyrology of St. Jerome.”
7. In the Bull, Ineffabilis Divinae Providentiae (1558): “Non solum in hac Alma Urbe, verum etiam in universis orbis ecclesiis” (not only in this City of Rome, but also in all the churches of the world).
8. Hans Küng, The Council and Reunion, London, Sheed and Ward, 1963, p. 197.
9.The Catholic Herald, March 14, 2017. This was not a case of Protestants simply being present at a Catholic liturgy. The shared liturgy took place at the altar, and was presided over by David Moxon, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s representative and Director of the Anglican Centre in Rome, with the active participation of Archbishop Roche.
11. The Church has always taught that actively joining in non-Catholic religious services is a violation of Divine Law. The mere act of sharing the worship of a non-Catholic group, irrespective of one’s inner beliefs, implies a common creed with that group and, hence, constitutes a sin against the Catholic Faith. This explains why, as Pius XI taught in the 1928 Encyclical Mortalium animos that “the Apostolic See cannot on any terms take part in their assemblies.” It is not surprising that this Encyclical is not mentioned, either directly or indirectly, in Vatican II’s document on Ecumenism, Unitatis redintegratio. Nor is there a single reference to it in the so-called Catechism of the Catholic Church, which diverges fundamentally from the Catholic doctrine on this issue.
12. The Church of England was established by Henry VIII with his Act of Supremacy (1534). This Act made the King supreme head of the so-called Church in England, and made allegiance to the Pope an act of treason against the Monarchy. A year later, St. John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and St. Thomas More were martyred for their defence of the authority of the Pope in the matter of the King’s divorce and remarriage. Thus, it can be said that the so-called Church of England was the fruit of Henry VIII’s adultery.
13. Paul VI, Address to the members of the Secretariat for Christian Unity (headed by Card.Bea), April 28, 1967.
14. The movement to make the Papacy more amenable to those outside the fold was given an enormous boost by Pope John Paul II in 1995. In Ut unum sint (§95) he invited dialogue with other faiths to find a way to make the Petrine Ministry “open to a new situation.”
15. Pope St Leo I, Sermon 3
16. Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, Volume 4, 22 February, Feast of the Chair of St Peter at Antioch

[Stone]

Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass

Expelling the Feast of St. Peter in Chains

Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

Pope John XXIII deprived the faithful of another very ancient feast dedicated to St. Peter by removing St. Peter in Chains (1 August) from the General Roman Calendar. (1) This Feast celebrates the dedication in 461 of the Roman Basilica of the same name, built to house the relics of the Chains by which St. Peter was bound during his imprisonment in Jerusalem and in Rome. (2)

The Chains of St. Peter displayed on the high altar of the Rome Basilica

As an indication of the antiquity of this feast, the Gregorian Sacramentary – an 8th century compilation of liturgical texts used in previous centuries – contains a Mass for the 1st of August of St. Peter in Chains. It is of the greatest interest to note that its Propers (Collect, Secret and Postcommunion) are all identical to those of the Mass, which John XXIII suppressed in 1960. (3)

This feast is venerable in its antiquity for, as part of the official prayer of the Church, it has come down to us unchanged through all generations of Catholics from the 5th century. The “official” reason for its suppression – that it was an unnecessary duplication of the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul – holds no water. It is inconsistent with the Church’s age-old practice of honoring its greatest Saints by according them multiple feasts – including, as we have seen, Vigils and Octaves – in the Calendar.


Chair, Chains & Keys

Not one of the feasts of St. Peter can be considered unnecessary; quite the reverse – they are all vital constituents of the immemorial tradition whereby the Church has given full liturgical honors to the Prince of the Apostles.

Just as his Chair in Rome was a symbol of his authority to teach, his Chains and Keys symbolize respectively his power of binding and loosing (retaining or remitting sins) given to him by Christ. In short, St. Peter’s Chains represent the bondage of sin, his Keys the means of liberation. That we all need to be loosed from those bonds is a reality that is not recognized by many today, hence the importance of this Feast Day in honor of St. Peter.

Let us now examine the Mass of St. Peter’s Chains so as to appreciate its value in terms of the Church’s adage lex orandi, lex credendi. Its prayers intertwine the themes of the fetters from which St. Peter was delivered by a miracle (Acts 12:7), and the bondage of sin from which we are freed through the supernatural power of his Keys (Mt 16:19).

The Latin form of the Alleluia verse – Loose, O Peter, the chains of the world at the bidding of God, thou that dost cause the heavenly realms to open to the blessed (4) – is a clear example of how liturgical language conveys essentially Catholic doctrine.

The Liberation of St. Peter by Raphael in the Vatican Museum

The Epistle (Acts 12:1-11) recounts the liberation of St. Peter from his Chains by the intervention of an Angel; the Gospel (Matt. 16:13-19) records that Christ conferred on him the power to absolve sins, and the Collect, as we can see from the Gregorian Sacramentary, (5) links the two events in one theologically harmonious whole: O God, Who didst cause blessed Peter, the Apostle, to depart, loosed from his chains and unhurt, loose, we beseech Thee, the chains of our sins, and graciously keep all evils far from us. Through Our Lord…

Taken together, all these prayers express the uniquely Catholic doctrine that, while sins are forgiven by God, He has chosen to mediate His forgiveness through priests of the New Covenant acting in the place of Christ. It hardly needs mentioning that this doctrine has always been, and still is, vigorously denied by Protestants.

Let us recall a pertinent remark by Msgr. Bugnini admitting that prayers in the Roman Rite that are unacceptable to Protestants should be eliminated so as “to facilitate in every way the path of union, removing every stone that can even remotely constitute a stumbling block or cause for discomfort for the separated brethren.” (6)

In these words, Bugnini’s scorn for the saving power of the Catholic liturgy to evangelize all nations is palpable. They contain no praise, only blame, for the loyalty that the Church has always shown in upholding all her traditions. Their implication is that certain Catholic prayers and practices do harm to those outside the Church by offending their sensibilities, and should be excised or altered.

There is a distinct element of irrationality here. As the formularies of St. Peter in Chains preceded the existence of Protestantism by a thousand years, they cannot be construed as specifically targeting Protestant communities. So, it is beyond perverse to force the Church to suppress this Feast Day instead of keeping it to promote a deeper understanding and appreciation of the Catholic Faith.


An Act of Self-Destruction

The underlying theme of the Mass of St. Peter in Chains – Christ’s gift to St. Peter and his Successors of the power to forgive sins – was considered by the progressivist reformers as too difficult for Protestants to accept.

San Pietro in Vincoli is this Basilica with the arches

According to the reformers, it would be better that this Mass disappear from history than the “separated brethren” should feel unable to pursue “dialogue” unimpeded by too overt a display of “Popery.” And, ever since, Church leaders have internalized the age-old Protestant gibes against the Papacy as a usurpation of divine prerogatives.

This volte-face began in earnest with Pope John XXIII’s opening speech of the Council, which, with supreme irony, contained a condemnation of any condemnation of doctrinal errors.

It was as if the Church had been struck by some spiritual auto-immune disease, and began attacking its own healthy organisms while welcoming in those that would paralyze its vital functions. Under the influence of the Ecumenical Movement, the Church simply stopped recognizing the difference between what is “self” – and should not be attacked – and “foreign” organisms, i.e., doctrinal errors, that should be attacked and eliminated.


Loss of Catholic Identity

As the traditional liturgy is indissolubly linked to Catholic identity, destroying any part of the former is bound to have a negative effect on the latter. After all, this identity comes principally through the “collective memory” of generations of Catholics who have witnessed exactly the same rites continuously performed from remote antiquity to the middle of the 20th century.

These rites, inspired by the Holy Spirit, are the visible, audible, tangible expressions of the Faith and, therefore, vehicles of Divine Revelation. They not only tell us what to believe, but also tell us who and what we are.

John XXIII delivers blows to tradition in his Opening Address

During the 16th century Pseudo-Reformation, the Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, removed prayers from his communion and ordination rites that did not conform to Protestant belief. It is simply unconscionable that, in the 20th century, Popes would follow suit, with the gradual elimination of Catholic-specific prayers and ceremonies, from Pius XII’s Holy Week services, through John XXIII’s “ecumenical” changes, to Paul VI’s full-blown Novus Ordo.

When John XXIII wielded the blade against the ancient Mass of St. Peter in Chains, far more was lost than a feast day in the General Calendar. He dealt a severe blow to the Priesthood: The disappearance of the Feast was more far-reaching than may first appear, as the General Calendar affects both the Missal and the Breviary, the two main staples of a priest’s liturgical life. The Breviary Lessons for August 1 ensured that all priests of the Roman Rite were familiar with the history of the Chains and the miracles associated with them. (7)

So, the real issue at stake was not the merits or demerits of “simplification,” but the right of the Catholic faithful to their full liturgical inheritance of which they were deprived for spurious “ecumenical” reasons. Every single such reform has opened the door to increasingly indefensible “ecumenical” practices, of which the following is pertinent to our topic.


Joining with Protestants to Destroy Catholicism

On July 22, 2015, Card. Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, attended a service of Choral Evensong in the Anglican Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula (St. Peter in Chains) in the Tower of London. There, he gave a sermon in which he quoted the Archbishop of Canterbury’s words on the importance of Religious Liberty as essential to a just and peaceful society. (8)

This is a clear illustration of how Vatican II induced the Catholic Hierarchy not only to appease those outside the Faith, but also to absorb and propagate their false doctrines which would destroy the Faith.

St Peter in Chains: A Sign of Contradiction to Religious Liberty

It is also an example of situational irony: an English Prelate in a joint service with Protestants in the Chapel of the Tower of London, where two Catholic Martyrs, Bishop John Fisher and Thomas More, still lie buried, having first been imprisoned in the Tower for their opposition to Henry VIII’s version of Religious Liberty.

Just as St. Peter opposed King Herod and the Emperor Nero, and was imprisoned and executed, so the two English Martyrs, who upheld the rights of the Church against the reigning Monarch, suffered a similar fate.

Card. Nichols posing after an ecumenical service in the the Tower of London Chapel

This Feast Day constitutes liturgical testimony that Vatican II’s teaching on Religious Liberty and Church-State relationships is false, and that modern Church leaders, under the Council’s influence, have failed to preserve what so many martyrs died to defend.

In the 19th century, Dom Guéranger’s commentary on the Feast can be seen as a prophetic reproof for Vatican II’s Religious Liberty: “Glorious Chains! Before the Herods and Neros and Caesars of all ages ye will be the guarantee of the liberty of souls. With what veneration have the Christian people honored you, ever since the earliest times!” (9)

And, addressing the first Pope, it was as if Dom Guéranger had foreseen the post-Vatican II crisis in the Church:

“The world, more than ever enslaved in the infatuation of its false liberties which make it forget the only true freedom, has more need now of enfranchisement than in the times of pagan Caesars: be once more its deliverer, now that thou art more powerful than ever. May Rome, especially, now fallen the lower because precipitated from a greater height, learn again the emancipating power that lies in thy Chains; they have become a rallying standard for her faithful children in these latter trials.” (10)

Continued

1. This Feast Day was relegated to the Appendix of the 1962 Missal under the heading of Missae pro aliquibus locis, i.e., one of the optional Masses to be celebrated in local places.
2. The Chains are displayed in a gold and glass reliquary in the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli (St Peter in Chains) in Rome. In 2010, Pope Benedict XVI assigned the “Titulus” of this Basilica to the Archbishop of Washington.
3. See here, p. 91.
4. Solve, jubente Deo, terrarium, Petre, catenas: qui facis ut pateant caelestia regna beatis.
5. See Note 1 for the text that reads: Deus qui beatum Petrum apostolum a vinculis absolutum inlæsum abire fecisti; nostrorum quaesumus absolve vincula peccatorum; et omnia mala a nobis propitiatus exclude. Per Dominum…
6. A. Bugnini, "Variationes" ad Alcuni Testi della Settimana Santa (The "Variations" of Some Texts of Holy Week), L’Osservatore Romano, March 19, 1965, p. 6. In this article, Bugnini was referring to the changes to what was once known as the Prayer for the Unity of the Church in the Good Friday liturgy in which the terms “heretics” and “schismatics” were no longer to be used. This was in line with Pope John XXIII’s suppression of the epithet perfidi from the Good Friday prayer for the Jews.
7. Before the relegation of this Feast, the Roman Breviary recounted the history of St. Peter’s Chains, as follows. When the Empress Eudocia, the wife of Theodosius II (ruler of the Eastern Roman Empire), went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 438, she received from Juvenalis, Bishop of Jerusalem, as gift the Chains by which St. Peter was held in prison under King Herod. She sent one portion of the Chains to her daughter Eudoxia, wife of Emperor Valentinian III, in Rome, who in turn presented it to the Pope [St. Leo the Great]. When Leo held it beside Peter’s Chains from the Mamertine Prison in Rome, the two miraculously fused together.
On account of this miracle, the Holy Chains began to be held in such great honor that a church on the Esquiline Hill was dedicated under the name of St. Peter ad vincula [in Chains], and the memory of its dedication was celebrated by a feast on the Kalends [i.e., first day] of August.
From that time, St. Peter’s Chains began to receive the honors of this day, instead of a pagan festival, which it had been customary to celebrate. Contact with them healed the sick, and put the demons to flight. 
Pope St. Gregory the Great had a great devotion to the relic, and his Letters give testimony to how widespread this devotion was. He often sent small filings of the Chains as gifts to Bishops and to devout Monarchs, e.g., the Byzantine Empress Constantina Augusta, King Childebert of the Franks and King Reccared of the Visigoths (who converted to Catholicism). The filings were placed in a gold reliquary in the shape of a key representing the spiritual authority of St. Peter and his Successors.
8. See here.
9. Dom Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, Vol. XIII, 1 August, Feast of St Peter in Chains, pp. 246-247.
10.Ibid., p. 251.

[Stone]

Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass
When the Saints Go Marching Out
Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

From the time of the early liturgical books, it was an accepted tradition to allocate two or more feasts in the Calendar to some of the Church’s major Saints. But the progressivist reformers came up with a wholly arbitrary aim to curtail “duplications” of feasts devoted to a particular Saint. They decided that their feast days, with hardly any exceptions, should be reduced to no more than one per Saint.

Angels proclaim the Saints; the new Calendar, instead, expelled them from the Liturgy

The fact that a hand-picked group of reformers could make up the rules as they went along meant that they could invent and use this convenient excuse to eliminate a whole clutch of feast days from the General Calendar under John XXIII (1) – and get away with it.

The point of having multiple feasts for an individual Saint was to provide an opportunity for the faithful to contemplate the Saint’s life from more than one angle, so as to reinforce more powerfully different elements of the Faith enshrined in them. We have seen how admirably this worked for the feasts of the Chair and the Chains of St. Peter.


Feasts Celebrating Relics were Expelled

In 1960, John XXIII eliminated from the General Roman Calendar two feasts which had been integral to the Roman Rite from ancient times – the Finding of St. Stephen (August 3) and the Finding of the Holy Cross (May 3).

Their disappearance is all the more reprehensible because they were the only Feasts which gave liturgical expression to the cult of sacred relics, as such, in the Universal Calendar. (2) We will deal with each in turn.


The Feast of the Finding of St. Stephen

From the 5th century up to 1960, the Church commemorated a miraculous event – the discovery of the body of the Protomartyr St. Stephen 400 years after his martyrdom. (3) The exact spot of his burial near Jerusalem was revealed in a series of visions to a priest named Lucian, and, upon disinterment, the relics of the Saint immediately wrought many cures.

The Finding of the Relics of St. Stephen - Jerónimo Jacinto de Espinosa, c. 1650

After they were distributed throughout the Catholic world, they gave rise to an abundance of well documented miraculous cures, conversions and raisings from the dead, some of them personally witnessed and recorded by St. Augustine of Hippo. (4) In fact, so convincing were the many written and oral testimonies to these miracles that they were widely accepted as being of divine origin. (5)

As a measure of the faith and joy of contemporary Catholics at the discovery of St. Stephen’s body, a Basilica in his honor was erected in Rome in the late 5th century to mark the occasion. (6) Thus, this feast day, recorded in the early Martyrologies as August 3, acquired a distinctively “Roman” character and was accorded an honored place in the General Roman Calendar.

What, then, must be the dismay of traditionally-minded Catholics today on learning that this feast, instituted to celebrate the finding of St. Stephen’s body in 415, was written out of this General Calendar by John XXIII in 1960? It was, after all, a feast that had originated spontaneously from the faith and devotion of the early Christians and enjoyed the protection of the Church down the centuries.

The Church’s intention in placing the August 3 feast in the Universal Calendar was to make known to all the faithful – the priests who said the Mass on August 3 and the people who attended it – the miraculous events associated with the finding of St. Stephen. It was meant to imbue the liturgy with an enhanced sense of the supernatural and provide an opportunity for all to reflect on God’s miraculous intervention in History.


Why Did the Feast Day have to Go?

The official reason was to avoid the “duplication” of having two feasts dedicated to St. Stephen – on August 3 and December 26. Anyone familiar with the pre-1962 Missal will know that these feasts were not mere duplications, but had their own distinctive character and purpose of existence. The former commemorates the discovery of the relics of St. Stephen and the latter his martyrdom. Hence, they feature two separate, though interrelated, themes for celebration, as the Collect of each Mass specifies. (7)

And, what was the real reason? Mgr. Bugnini had already mapped out the path of this reform by 1955 when he proposed a sort of liturgical “triage” procedure for prioritizing or eliminating Saints from the Calendar, based on their appeal to the spirit of modern times:

“The Church should choose the types of sanctity to be proposed for imitation and example, according to the times and the spiritual needs of the faithful. Hence arises once more the necessity of a revision of her prayer-texts in which some saints, whose spiritual features have lost contact with the modern soul, may be replaced by others more typical, more present-day, closer to us.” (8)

What, precisely, were the criteria for judging which feasts to eliminate from the General Calendar? “Simplification” was supposed to be of the essence in the reform, but this turns out to be a transparent pretext to cloak the real intention of the reformers – gradually to weed out certain feasts that would be unacceptable to modern man.

We are enlightened on this issue by Fr. Carlo Braga, who had been Bugnini’s right-hand man since the time of Pius XII, and was witness to all the stages of the liturgical reform. (9)

Fr. Braga explained that the liturgical changes of the 1960s leading to the Novus Ordo liturgy stemmed from the “new positions” the Church had taken in that decade. There were, he alleged, “ecumenical reasons” to suppress “devotional aspects, or particular ways of venerating or invoking the saints” in the light of the “new values and new perspectives” of contemporary man. He even admitted that these changes affected “not only form but also doctrinal reality” (10) ‒ in other words, the lex orandi and lex credendi.

What was being proposed by Bugnini in this reform was a cynical calculation about the relative desirability of having “some saints, whose spiritual features have lost contact with the modern soul” eliminated from the Calendar.

We can forget about “simplification.” The elimination of the Finding of St. Stephen would, according to Bugnini, be justified on the grounds of being too much of a “stretch” for the credibility of modern man. So, after his Finding, St. Stephen was, as it were, promptly re-buried along with his miracles.


Baneful consequences of the reform

By eliminating this feast from the Calendar, the impression was given that belief in such miracles is no longer required. There is also a covert suggestion that the events commemorated in the feast did not really happen, but were a figment of some people’s imagination.

It is, of course, only a short step from there to casting doubt on the integrity of the holy men – including St. Augustine – who witnessed and documented the events, and implying that they were fable-mongers, gullible or merely delusional.

As a direct result of this reform, what had once been described as “one of the most celebrated events of the 5th century” (11) has now fallen into oblivion among priests and faithful of the Roman Rite. It was to prevent this fate that St. Augustine had recorded the spate of miracles in his day:

“When I saw, in our own times, frequent signs of the presence of divine powers similar to those that had been given of old, I desired that narratives might be written, judging that the multitude should not remain ignorant of these things.” (12)

Ironically, as a direct result of this reform, ignorance – or, worse, skepticism – now reigns about a feast that had nourished the spiritual life of our forefathers.

This reform marks a definite rupture with the traditional Calendar relating to a feast that reflected one of Catholicism’s deepest values – the idea that God works miracles through His Saints and their relics. As it is a distinctively Catholic doctrine denied by Protestants – who have always denounced the veneration of relics as superstition and idolatry – the Finding of St. Stephen was also, like other “inconvenient” feasts, excised for “ecumenical” reasons.

Continued

1. Examples of feasts removed from the General Calendar in 1960 on the grounds of being “duplications” are: The Finding of the Holy Cross, St. John before the Latin Gate, The Apparition of St. Michael, St. Peter in Chains, The Finding of St. Stephen, The Chair of St. Peter at Rome, St. Anacletus Pope and Martyr.
2. This applied only to the General Roman Calendar which formerly mandated these two feast days for the Universal Church. They were relegated to an Appendix of the 1962 Missal where, together with other feasts expelled from that Calendar, they were designated as optional Masses pro aliquibus locis to be celebrated in certain local churches or dioceses to which they pertained.
3. Other bodies discovered in the same grave were those of Sts. Gamaliel, Nicodemus and Abibas. A full account of the history of St. Stephen’s relics is provided by Dom Guéranger in The Liturgical Year, vol. 13, pp. 267-272.
4. In The City of God (book 22, chapter 8), St. Augustine mentions the miracles that happened soon after the relics were brought to Africa: “It is not yet two years since these relics were first brought to Hippo-regius.” As for the publicly attested miracles that he attributes to the intercession of “the most glorious Stephen,” “those which have been published amount to almost 70 at the hour at which I write. But at Calama, where these relics have been for a longer time, and where more of the miracles were narrated for public information, there are incomparably more.”
5. Even the habitually skeptical 17th century historian, Lenain de Tillemont, who excelled in punctilious concern for discarding unauthentic sources of information, was convinced of the genuineness of these testimonies concerning the miracles wrought by the relics of St. Stephen. See de Tillemont, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire ecclésiastique, Paris, 1694, vol. 2, pp. 10-24.
6. The Basilica of St. Stephen was originally commissioned by Pope Leo I (440-461), and was consecrated by Pope Simplicius in the late 5th century.
7. The Collects of the feasts mention St. Stephen’s inventionem (finding) and the natalitia (birth to eternal life, i.e., martyrdom) respectively
8. A. Bugnini, ‘Why a Liturgy Reform?,’ Worship XXIX, n. 10 1954/5, p. 564.
9. Fr. Braga had been involved in all the preparatory work of Vatican II’s Liturgy Constitution from his “apprenticeship” as Bugnini’s personal assistant during the time of Pius XII’s Liturgical Commission, although he was not formally appointed as a member of that Commission until 1960.
10. Archbishop Piero Marini, Bugnini’s personal Secretary, said that Fr. Braga was “a friend of Bugnini’s, and, like him, was a Vincentian” and “was to become one of the most important resource people at the Consilium”. In fact, Bugnini chose him personally in 1964 to be his Assistant Secretary of the Consilium. (Apud P. Marini, A Challenging Reform: Realizing the Vision of the Liturgical Renewal, 1963-1975, Liturgical Press, 2007, p. 41). Fr. Braga was also a collaborator with the periodical Ephemerides Liturgicae of which Bugnini was Editor.
Carlo Braga, Ephemerides Liturgicae, 84, 1970, p. 419.
11. De Tillemont, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire ecclésiastique, p. 12.
12. St. Augustine, The City of God, book 22, chapter 8.

[Stone]

Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass

The Finding of the Holy Cross

Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

We will now consider the removal of the feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross (May 3) from the General Roman Calendar in 1960. The True Cross – the historical Cross on which our Savior died – is, of course, the most highly prized of all relics because it was the instrument of salvation. Its value as a relic was recognized in the early 4th century when St. Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, had a vision that inspired her to visit Jerusalem and find the site of the Crucifixion.

Above, St. Helena finds the three crosses; below, the True Cross cures a sick woman

The Second Nocturn in the traditional Roman Breviary for May 3 relates:

“After that famous victory that the Emperor Constantine gained over Maxentius, in the year 312, on the eve of which the banner of the Cross of the Lord had been given to him from Heaven, Helena, the mother of Constantine, being warned in a dream, came to Jerusalem, in 326, to seek for the Cross. There it was her care to cause to be overthrown the marble statue of Venus, which had stood on Calvary for about 180 years, and which had originally been put there to desecrate and destroy the memorial of the sufferings of the Lord Christ.…

“Helena caused deep excavations to be made, which resulted in the discovery of three crosses, and, apart from them, the writing that had been nailed on that of the Lord. But which of the crosses had been His was unknown, and was only manifested by a miracle. Macarius, Bishop of Jerusalem, after offering solemn prayers to God, touched with each of the three a woman who was afflicted with a grievous disease. The first two had no effect, but at the touch of the third she was immediately healed.”

The Collect of the abolished Mass, moreover, confirms this miraculous power and attributes it specifically to the “glorious finding of the Cross of our salvation.” (1)

The Breviary continues:

“Helena, after she had found the life-giving Cross, built over the site of the Passion a Church of extraordinary splendor, wherein she deposited part of the Cross, enclosed in a silver case. Another part, which she gave to her son, Constantine, was laid up in the Church of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem, which he built at Rome on the site of the Sessorian Palace.”

The historicity of this discovery was accepted by the Church mainly on the testimony of St Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem (c. 315-386). (2) Being a resident of the area from his childhood, he might even have seen the excavations and would almost certainly have heard about them. He later mentioned, with particular reference to the Cross, that “the Holy Places that had been hidden were revealed” during the reign of Constantine. (3)

In his Catechetical Lectures, St. Cyril made several references to “the wood of the Cross, which is seen here among us even to the present day.” And, preaching in 348 in the church founded by Constantine on the recently discovered site of the Crucifixion, he stated:

“There He was crucified for our sins. If you deny it, this place refutes you visibly – this blessed Golgotha, in which we are even now assembled for the sake of Him who was here attached to the Cross – as does the wood of the Cross, of which fragments without number have already been carried throughout the world.” (4)

St. Cyril’s testimony was considered authentic by the Church for several reasons. He was a man of great spiritual stature and personal integrity, and was one of the very few Bishops of the time who had courageously defended the Faith during the Arian heresy, suffering persecution from his brother Bishops.

Not only did he have detailed knowledge of the topography of the area, but he was also familiar with local events and contemporary reports. His references to the wood of the Cross were located in specific historical circumstances, and his knowledge of events was, therefore, rooted in factuality, not fanciful legend. Thus, we can be morally certain that the relics of the True Cross had been found in his lifetime and immediately received widespread veneration.

There is no reason to doubt the veracity of 4th century accounts of St. Helena or the veneration of fragments of the True Cross simply because they were first circulated by means of oral testimony. They were soon recorded in writing by people who lived in the same century.

Apart from St. Cyril, we have the written testimony of St. Ambrose (c. 340–397) who mentions how St. Helena went to Jerusalem and found the Holy Cross; (5) St. Paulinus, Bishop of Nola (354-431), who had acquired a fragment of the Cross from Jerusalem; St. John Chrysostom (349-407); the nun Egeria, who made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 380; and the historian Rufinus (c. 340-410).


A Tragic Farce

Even though it was a feast of universal significance in the Church, having been celebrated in Rome from the 6th century (and earlier than that in the East), the progressivist reformers considered it had no place in the Universal Calendar. Their claim that the Finding of the Cross (May 3) was a duplication of the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14) – and that it should, therefore, be eliminated for the purposes of “simplification” – is demonstrably absurd. It is easily debunked by comparing the two feast days as they were handed down to us in the traditional Missal.

It can be seen that we are not dealing with duplicated Masses, but with two very different liturgies. The Propers (Collect, Gospel, Offertory, Secret and Post-communion) of the Finding of the Cross differ completely from those of the Exaltation. Moreover, they contain phrases that are not found in the Exaltation, e.g. “miracula” (miracles); “bellorum nequitia” (the horrors of war); “ad conterendas potestatis adversae insídias (trample underfoot the snares of the enemy’s power); “ab hoste malígno defendas” (defend us from the craft of the Evil One).

The tragedy of this reform is that the theologically rich Propers of the Finding, emphasizing the Christian struggle against the forces of evil, were lost to the wider Church when the feast was suppressed. And that was done in 1960, even before Bugnini and the Consilium produced the Novus Ordo liturgy from which they eliminated or toned down suchlike references because they were “too negative” for modern man.

The two feasts also differ because these prayers reflect two distinct themes – first, the miraculous discovery and, then, the glorious triumph of the Holy Cross. The May feast commemorates the finding of the Cross in 326, and places particular emphasis on its significance as a relic; whereas the September feast celebrates two historical events – the dedication of Constantine’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher built on Golgotha in 335, and the restoration of the True Cross to Jerusalem in 629 after it had been stolen and temporarily lost to the Church. (6)

In short, without the initial finding of the Cross, there would be no factual justification for the feast of the Exaltation, which commemorates its subsequent loss, rediscovery and safe return to its homeland. Therefore, the September feast is dependent on the May feast for its meaning and historicity. It makes no sense to keep the one and abolish the other.


A Transparent Charade

It is now claimed that the feast of the Exaltation commemorates all themes rolled into one, so that no one should have cause for complaint at losing the Finding. But this is a classic piece of obfuscation, for the two liturgies, as they stood in 1960, each had its own theological raison d’être that determined its place in the Calendar.

Significantly, it was the Finding of the Cross that gave rise to its veneration, not just in Jerusalem, but in all parts of the Roman Empire where fragments of it were dispersed from 326 AD. It was only natural, therefore, that the Finding itself should be commemorated in a special feast day of its own, and have an honored place in the General Roman Calendar.

We must conclude that its suppression in 1960 was entirely unjustified, having been brought about under false pretenses. We do not need to look far for the real, underlying reason for the disappearance of this feast – “Ecumenism” – which we will examine in the next article.


Continued


1. Deus, qui in praeclara salutiferae Crucis Inventione, passionis tuae miracula suscitasti: concede ut vitalis ligni pretio, aeternae vitae suffragia consequamur. (O God, Who in the glorious Finding of the Cross of our salvation, didst renew the miracles of Thy Passion, grant that, by the price of that life-giving wood, we may obtain the privilege of eternal life).
Confessor and Doctor of the Church.
2. St. Cyril, Letter to Constantius, 351. The Emperor Constantius II was the son and successor of Constantine. In this letter, St. Cyril mentioned the phenomenon of the luminous cross that appeared in the sky above Golgotha and was seen by all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
3. Catechetical Lectures, Lecture 4, De Cruce.
4. St. Ambrose, De obitu Theodosii (395) (Funeral Oration for the Emperor Theodosius).
5.In 614, the Persian King Chosroes II conquered Jerusalem. Among the spoils of war that he took back with him to Persia was the relic of the True Cross, which had been kept in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre from the time of St Helena and Constantine.
6. At the Battle of Nineveh in 627, the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius defeated the Persian King, and brought back the True Cross to Jerusalem in 629, where it was placed in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

[Stone]

Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass
Abolished to Please Protestants: The Finding of the Holy Cross Feast
Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

Until the time of the Pseudo-Reformation, it was generally believed by Christians of the East and the West that St. Helena had indeed found the original Cross. But, centuries later, came the Protestant Pseudo-Reformation whose adherents, driven by their animosity to the veneration of relics, bitterly contested the validity of this tradition, which became the target of ridicule in Protestant circles from the 16th century to the present day.


Luther’s Invectives

Luther’s condemnation of what he termed “gross and palpable lies about the Holy Cross” (1) was directed not just against whatever fraudulent claims that might have been circulating in his day, but against the genuine relics of the Cross approved by the Church since the 4th century.

St Thomas More, a contemporary, quoted from one of Luther’s sermons that if he had “pieces of the Holy Cross in his hand,” he would put them “where never sun should shine on them.” (2) In the same sermon, Luther objected to the devout custom of embellishing relics of the Holy Cross with precious metals, stating that “there is so much gold now bestowed about the garnishing of the pieces of the Cross… that there is none left for poor folk!” (3)


Calvin’s Denigration

John Calvin made two jibes that caught the public imagination in his time and have remained in currency among Protestants to the present day. First, he lampooned the whole idea of there being an extant relic of the Cross, when he famously quipped:

“If we were to collect all these pieces of the true cross exhibited in various parts, they would form a whole ship’s cargo.” (4)

Protestants detested that gold and jewels were used to honor the True Cross, above, Limburg reliquary

Little did he realize that one day someone would challenge this statement and expose it as a piece of scurrilous nonsense. In actual fact, it has been scientifically calculated that if all the wood historically authenticated as part of the True Cross were put together, they would make up less than 10% of the volume of one whole cross big enough to hang a man upon.

In the 19th century a French architect, Charles Rohault de Fleury, embarked on a monumental programme of research into Calvin’s claim, and published his results in 1870. (5) After extensive travels, he made an exhaustive catalogue of all known relics of the Cross throughout the world, giving the exact measurements, volume and physical description of each one.

He even included portions which were known to have existed but had been lost or destroyed, estimating their size from historical records. Most, it transpired, were so small – merely splinters or minuscule fragments – that they had to be measured in cubic millimeters.

When all the figures were added up, the grand total came to a small fraction of the volume of a cross used by the Romans for executions. With a ratio of 180:5, (6) we can justifiably conclude that the scandal was not that there should be so many relics existing, but that there should be so disappointingly few.

De Fleury received a personal letter from Pope Pius IX expressing the Pontiff’s appreciation for his scholarly and painstaking research. (7)


An Impious Invention

Calvin’s second jibe against the Holy Cross was no less ludicrous – and enduring – than the first:

“They have invented the tale that, whatever quantity of wood may be cut off this true cross, its size never decreases.” (8)

Scientifically demonstrated that the existing fragments were less than the bulk of the True Cross

But, whoever invented the tale – and we know that Erasmus was influential in its dissemination (9) – it gave a whole new meaning to the term “Invention of the Holy Cross” – the title given to the feast in the pre-1960 Calendar, derived from the Latin inventio (“finding”).

The 16th century heretics blamed St. Paulinus, Bishop of Nola (354-431) as the source of the tale (which they themselves had invented) by tendentiously interpreting a passage from one of his letters. This is used, even today, as “proof” that Catholic doctrine is grounded in magic and superstition.


What did St. Paulinus really say?

But, a correct reading of his letter in the original Latin yields no such interpretation. When St. Paulinus sent a piece of his own relic of the Holy Cross in 403 to his friend, Sulpicius Severus, (10) he wrote an accompanying letter apologizing for the embarrassingly small size of the gift – he described it as “almost an atom of a small sliver” (11) – and explaining its provenance, as follows.

Bishop John of Jerusalem (St. Cyril’s successor) had given a tiny fragment of the Cross to the wealthy and pious lady, Melania, (12) who in turn gave a portion of it to St. Paulinus, who sent an even tinier fragment of his nanoscopic particle to Severus.

This raises a logical question that never seems to have occurred to Calvin and the critics of the True Cross. If, as they derisively claimed, Catholics believed that it spontaneously replaced any portions taken from it, so that it went on multiplying itself endlessly, why did Catholics for centuries go to such extraordinary lengths to conserve it by dividing it into infinitesimally small fragments?

A precious reliquary of the True Cross in Notre Dame in Paris

St. Paulinus explained the importance of the tiny particle of the Cross: “Let not your faith shrink because the eyes of the body behold evidence so small; let it look with the inner eye on the whole power of the Cross in this tiny segment.” (13)

He went on to say that, even though the “inanimate wood” (materia insensata) of the Cross is “daily divided” (quotidie dividua), it has “living power” (vim vivens) “to obtain the great grace of faith and many blessings.”

In other words, the “power of the Cross” resides in all its scattered fragments, so that it “should remain whole and entire (ut… quasi intacta permaneat) to those who avail themselves of it, and always undiminished (et semper tota) to those who venerate it.” (14)

It has escaped the Protestant critics that St. Paulinus was referring to the mystical significance of the life-giving Cross (15) which, in its spiritual dimension, cannot suffer diminution, no matter how many people draw from its graces. But, to a Catholic, it is obvious that he was speaking rhetorically of the inexhaustible riches of the Cross. (16)

The letter contains no evidence of the material substance of the original Cross expanding to replace the parts taken from it. Had that been the case, surely St. Paulinus would have sent a larger piece, if only to save embarrassment. (17)

In fact, pieces of the True Cross were in such short supply that only people with good connections to the Bishop of Jerusalem (like Melania) were privileged to obtain a fragment. Most pilgrims to Jerusalem had to be content with blessed oil that had been in contact with a relic of the True Cross. (18)

And the tradition of venerating an ordinary cross on Good Friday, where a piece of the True Cross was lacking, would not have arisen if the Church had a never-ending supply of wood from the original source.


Protestants influenced Catholic liturgical reform

The post-Reformation period produced many influential works that established the foundation for anti-Catholic polemics against the veneration of relics, particularly of the True Cross. Anyone who is familiar with the ensuing deluge of books, pamphlets, tracts, articles and sermons produced by Protestant churchmen over the following 400 years can see the extent to which abhorrence of this Catholic tradition is embedded in their religion and culture.

St. Helena's finding of the Cross dismissed by Protestants as a foolish myth

Their main objection to the Finding of the Cross was its supernatural underpinnings. St. Helena’s vision was dismissed by Calvin as a “foolish curiosity, and a silly and inconsiderate devotion, which prompted Helena to seek for that cross.” (19) The miracle of healing wrought by the Cross was disbelieved and ridiculed from then on.


Protestant Mythology

As Calvin’s jibe was taken up by Protestant controversialists, it soon achieved the status of an urban myth. The more it was repeated, the more it was believed. By the 20th century, it was still feeding the popular imagination, so much so that the feast day was regarded as an embarrassing manifestation of irrationality and superstition by progressivist Catholics.

Is it not grotesque that, under pressure from “ecumenism,” the members of the 1960 Liturgical Commission decided to eliminate the Finding of the Holy Cross? And that the historic attacks on the Catholic Faith were used to justify the liturgical marginalization of this feast? But this could not have happened if Pope John XXIII had not connived at their efforts to de-Catholicize the traditional liturgy.

A relic of the True Cross

Continued

1. Martin Luther, “An Exhortation to the Clergy Assembled at the Diet of Augsburg” (1530), Works, Philadelphia: A.J. Holman Company, 1931, vol. 4, p. 34.
2. “A Dialogue Concerning Heresies,” The Complete Works of St. Thomas More, Yale University Press, 1981, vol. 6, p. 50. Luther’s remark was taken as meaning that he would bury them in the ground, which is ironic as that is exactly what the enemies of the Cross of Christ did after the Crucifixion.
3. Ibid.
4. John Calvin, Treatise on Relics, 1534. New variants of Calvin’s quote are heard today, e.g., that there would be enough wood “to fill a ten-ton truck, or build a battleship/ a replacement for Noah’s Ark/ a bridge from Europe to America/ a ladder to the moon.”
5. In the same work, Calvin added: “the desire for relics is never without superstition, and what is worse, it is usually the parent of idolatry.”
Charles Rohault de Fleury, Mémoire sur les instruments de la Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ (Dissertation on the Instruments of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ), Paris, L. Lesort, 1870.
6. Basing his figures on historical data of the 1st century, De Fleury estimated that the volume of a whole cross would be about 180,000,000 cubic mm., and he compared this to the collective volume of the relics which was less than 5,000,000 cubic mm. (Ibid., p.163) He also stated that, even if the volume of known relics were tripled to 15,000,000 cubic mm., it would still be less than 10% of a whole cross. (Ibid., p. 59)
7. This letter, dated April 7, 1870, is printed in full at the beginning of De Fleury’s book. In it, Pope Pius IX commended the author for having “annihilated the sophistical arguments and mockery” of those who denigrated the authentic relics of the Holy Cross. And he complimented him on the scientific knowledge, laborious efforts and arduous travels that made the research a valuable defense of the True Cross.
8. J. Calvin, Treatise on Relics, 1534.
9. Desiderius Erasmus, “The Religious Pilgrimage” in The Colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus , London: Gibbings and Company, 1900, vol. 2, p. 220. (First published in 1518) Erasmus wrote a satirical skit of a pilgrimage to the shrine of our Lady of Walsingham, in which Ogygius says to his friend, Menedemus: “And they tell us the same stories about Our Lord’s Cross, that is shown up and down, both publicly and privately, in so many places, that if all the fragments were gathered together, they would seem to be sufficient loading for a good large ship; and yet Our Lord himself carried the whole Cross upon his shoulders.”
10. Severus was a disciple and biographer of St. Martin de Tours.
11. “Segmento paene atomo hastulae brevis”
12. Melania the Elder (350-410), a relative of St. Paulinus, was from a wealthy and prestigious Roman family. She lived a strictly ascetic life and founded a monastery in Jerusalem where she was well-known to Bishop John. St. Paulinus made several references to her in his letters to Severus.
13. “Non angustetur fides vestra carnalibus oculis parva cernentibus, sed interna acie totam in hoc minimo vim crucis videat.” (Ibid., p. 268, §2)
14. Paulinus of Nola, Epistolae, Epist. XXXI in Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (volume 29), p. 274, §6.
Paulinus reinforces this concept in the next sentence: “Assuredly, it draws this power of incorruptibility, of indestructible integrity, from the Blood of that Flesh that endured death, yet did not see corruption.”
15. A little known fact about St. Paulinus was the eloquence of his literary style. Having attended the school of rhetoric and poetry established in his native Bordeaux by the poet and teacher Ausonius (310–395), he wrote Latin poetry in the style of Virgil, Horace and Ovid, which can still be read today. Even his prose style was often rhetorical and florid, as can be seen in his many letters and exemplified in the letter to Severus quoted above.
17. This would have mattered greatly to St. Paulinus: it was characteristic of him to feel embarrassment at the smallness of a gift. When he sent a few game birds to his friend, Gestidius, he mentions his “embarrassment at their small number,” begs his friend’s pardon, and hopes that “the meagre gift is not uncivil.” (P. G. Walsh, The Poems of St. Paulinus of Nola, Paulist Press, 1974, p. 31)
18. The oil was placed in small flasks called ampullae, which were worn around their neck.
19. J. Calvin, Treatise on Relics, 1534.

[Stone]

Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass

St. Michael: Another ‘Unwanted’ Feast for the Reformers

Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

Another example of the arbitrary and oppressive nature of what Mgr. Bugnini called “simplification” of the Calendar is the suppression in 1960 of a feast of major importance in the life of the Church: the Apparition of St. Michael (May 8).

For centuries before 1960, there were two feasts of St. Michael in the Universal Calendar: May 8 and September 29. But they were designated by the Liturgical Commission as an unnecessary “duplication,” and the Apparition of St. Michael was thrown out along with the other “unwanted” feasts in the 1960 Calendar.

A medieval manuscript celebrates the victory of St. Michael at Monte Gargano

As with the previously mentioned feasts eliminated in the same year, it involved the building of a place of worship to commemorate miraculous events. According to the Roman Breviary, the feast was instituted to thank God for a military victory achieved at Monte Gargano, Italy, on May 8 , 663, through the intercession of St. Michael. The battle was described by the 8th century Benedictine historian, Paul the Deacon, thus:

“When the Greeks of that time came to plunder the sanctuary of the holy Archangel [Michael] situated upon Mount Garganus (Gargano), Grimuald [King of the Lombards], coming upon them with his army, overthrew them with much slaughter.” (1)

What is remarkable about this incident is that the Archangel had promised to protect the sanctuary – now the oldest shrine in the West dedicated to St. Michael – when he appeared there in 492.

The pre-1960 Breviary gives a full account of the circumstances. (2) From this we learn that St. Michael appeared at the end of the 5th century to the Bishop of the nearby town of Siponto, with a message concerning a cave in Monte Gargano: (3) namely, that the grotto should become a shrine dedicated to St. Michael who would take it under his protection.

However, as such miraculous occurrences simply have no meaning in progressist circles of the Catholic Church, Bugnini dismissed them as “not historical,” implying that they were not worthy of credibility. Instead, liturgical “experts” have chosen to believe something of their own invention: that the Apparition of St. Michael, like many other “second feasts” of an individual Saint, was cluttering up the Liturgical Year, and should no longer occupy a place in the General Calendar.

The Sanctuary of Monte Gargano is the oldest shrine dedicated to St. Michael in Western Europe

We cannot overlook the underlying reason for the feast’s removal. By 1960, the Church was beginning to downplay the supernatural character of the liturgy to make it more acceptable to Protestants, who rejected miracles and apparitions.

Martin Luther had launched the absurd rumor that, during his Apparition, St. Michael had shed some of his feathers, which were being sought as “collectibles” by Catholic relic-hunters. (4)

The tale of the feathers so tickled the Protestant fancy that it is still provoking hilarity today. Mention the Apparition of St. Michael, and you are likely to be asked if you have a feather. It is even doing the rounds among Catholic liturgists (5) and priests who, in their homilies, wish to mock traditional beliefs.

We need only a brief look at the history of this feast and its reception by the Church up to 1960 to see how shocking these pretexts are in their spiritual obtuseness.


How Important was the Feast of the Apparition of St. Michael?

The importance of this feast derives from its place in History. (6)

First, it commemorates the first of several known apparitions of St. Michael the Archangel in Western Christianity, (7) and would play a seminal role in influencing the development of devotion to St. Michael in the Roman Rite.

St. Pius V was a great devotee of St. Michael the Archangel

Second, the shrine at Gargano was a major pilgrimage site of international status throughout the Middle Ages and, together with Jerusalem, was regarded as one of the holiest sites in Christendom. It was sometimes used as a staging post for pilgrims en route to Jerusalem by sea. It was visited by Popes, Emperors (including Charlemagne), Kings and Queens, Bishops and Abbots, Saints, clergy and lay faithful seeking the protection of St. Michael against the forces of Satan and his minions.

Third, Pope St. Pius V considered this ancient feast to be of such importance for the spiritual life of the faithful that he placed it in the Calendar of the Universal Church in1568. This was not an innovation: Pius V simply transmitted to posterity the feast that had been handed down over centuries, and gave it its title in Apparitione S. Michaelis, by which it was subsequently known.

We know that Pius V was particularly devoted to St. Michael because he had taken the name Michele when he entered the Dominican Order as a novice. Following his celestial patron, the Pope proved himself to be a defender of Christ’s Church on earth.

Fourth, since then, the universal character of devotion to St. Michael is further shown by the feasts, calendars and martyrologies, Masses and prayers, patronages, (8) pilgrimages, guilds and confraternities dedicated to him, and which were all in some way connected with the 5th century Apparition.


Decline in Devotion to St. Michael started in 1960

When we think of the prominence of St. Michael in public worship before 1960, we can see when the worm began to enter the apple: with the reforms of Pope John XXIII.

Before 1960, St. Michael was invoked 7 times at Low Mass (9) and also at High Mass, (10) but two times less in both cases after 1960 with the suppression of the Confiteor before Communion.

A militant St. Michael in front of a church in Hamburg, Germany, dedicated to him

He was mentioned 9 times on his feast day, May 8, including two references to him in the Propers of the Mass: one indirectly in the Offertory verse, (11) the other by name in the Postcommunion. (12) Thus, although these references remained in the September feast of St. Michael in the 1962 Missal, an extra opportunity for the whole Church to give liturgical honors to St. Michael was dropped from the Calendar when the May feast was suppressed.

The Prayer to St. Michael – a prayer of Exorcism – mandated after every Low Mass as part of the Leonine Prayers (13) – was already under threat of extinction by 1960. It had been on the agenda of every international Liturgical Conference in the 1950s for elimination. (See here)

It is not surprising, therefore, that by 1962 there were rules already in place allowing the omission of the Leonine Prayers after Low Mass on a wide range of occasions, some examples being:

• When the Mass is preceded by a function e.g. distribution of ashes;
  

• When a homily is preached during the Mass;
  

• When the Mass is said in “dialogue” form on Sundays or Feast Days;
  

• When the Mass is followed by Benediction or a Novena. (14)
  

Then, in 1964, they were suppressed completely by the Instruction Inter Oecumenici drawn up by Bugnini’s Consilium.


The Final Farewell to St. Michael

Five years later, when the Consilium produced the Novus Ordo Mass, St. Michael was written out of the text. Only on his feast day of September 29 is his name mentioned as an option in the Lectionary, but even this concession is withdrawn if his feast falls on a Sunday. Moreover, the Prince of the Heavenly Host, pre-eminent in the Angelic Hierarchy, now shares a group-title for his feast day with the other Archangels.

St. Michael, honored in the East and West for centuries

Who would have thought in 1960 that the Archangel who protected the Israelites in the Old Testament and is the special protector of the Church would himself need protection against attempts by the Church to downgrade and ignore him?

Who would have thought that a Pope would have inaugurated this campaign against St. Michael who, according to Tradition, is the Guardian Angel of each of the Sovereign Pontiffs? (15)

Pope John XXIII once stated, that “we must have a lively and profound devotion to our own Guardian Angel… and never forget him,” (16) but his enthusiasm for St. Michael seems to have flown out of the window he famously opened when “ecumenism” loomed on the horizon.


‘Ecumenism’ strikes again

The feast of the Apparition of St. Michael was a particularly sensitive issue because it stood at the intersection between private revelation and public liturgy. The very idea of angelic intervention – that St. Michael should appear in person, give instructions to individuals or intervene in human affairs – is dismissed by Protestants and progressist Catholics as mythology.

A depiction of the miracle at the cave where St. Michael indicated the place for the Sanctuary

This reform was part of the gradual secularization of the Faith. St. Michael had been kept in the forefront of the minds of the faithful through the liturgy for centuries, but from 1960 belief in these supernatural realities began to disappear from Catholic consciousness.

Few Catholics nowadays have any awareness of the need to pray to St. Michael “to defend us in battle.” It is as if this strong, virile symbol of the Church Militant has been made redundant, having exchanged his sword for a white flag and adopted “dialogue” as a fig-leaf for surrender to the forces of evil.

St. Michael in the Sanctuary of Monte Gargano

Continued

1. Paul the Deacon, Historia Langobardorum (History of the Lombards), translated by W. D. Foulke, New York, Longman, Green & Co., 1906, Chapter XLVI, p. 200. Paul the Deacon, himself of Lombard descent, was an 8th century scribe and historian in the court of Charlemagne.
2. A bull, belonging to a man who lived on the mountain, having strayed from the herd, was found hemmed fast in the mouth of a cave. One of its pursuers shot an arrow with a view to rouse the animal by a wound; but the arrow rebounded and struck the one that had sent it.
This circumstance excited so much fear in the bystanders and in those who heard of it, that no one dared to go near the cave. The inhabitants of Siponto, therefore, consulted the Bishop; who answered that, in order to know God’s will, they must spend three days in fasting and prayer.
At the end of the three days, the Archangel Michael intimated to the Bishop that the place was under his protection, and that what had occurred was an indication of his will that God should be worshipped there, in honor of himself and the Angels. Whereupon, the Bishop repaired to the cave, together with his people. They found it like a church in shape, and began to use it for the celebration of the divine service. Many miracles were afterwards wrought there.
3. Interestingly, archaeological excavations at this cave have uncovered the ruins of a Christian place of worship dating from the late 5th century beneath a later sanctuary built in the 7th century by the Lombard Kings. (See Nicholas Everett, ‘The Liber de Apparitione S. Michaelis in Monte Gargano and the Hagiography of Dispossession,’ Analecta Bollandiana, vol. 120, Issue 2, 2002, p. 372)
4.Martin Luther, Works, vol. 54, p. 247
5. E.g. the influential Filipino liturgist, Anscar Chupungco O.S.B., stated: “The veneration of the bodies or relics of saints is a sad chapter in the history of the liturgy… When I was a student in Europe, it was one of my diversions to look for some of the most amusing kinds of relics: a feather of St. Michael the Archangel…” in his book What, Then, is Liturgy?: Musings and Memoir, Quezon City: Claretian Publications, 2010, p. 48.
6. The earliest extant record of the event is the Liber de apparitione Sancti Michaelis in Monte Gargano (Book of the Apparition of St Michael on Monte Gargano), most likely written in the 7th century, which contains a reference to a lost 6th century account.
7. The tradition of devotion to Saint Michael originated in the first century in Asia Minor near the city of Colossae (now in modern Turkey). In the 4th century, Constantine built in his honor a magnificent church, the Michaelion, near Constantinople.
8. St Michael is, among other things, patron of the armed forces and the police.
9. Twice in each of the 3 Confiteors and once in the Leonine Prayers after Mass.
10. As above for the Confiteors, and once at the blessing of incense at the Offertory where the priest prays that “through the intercession of Blessed Michael the Archangel, standing at the right of the altar of incense, the Lord may deign to bless this incense, and receive it in an odor of sweetness.”
11. Apocalypse 8: 3-4.
12. “Relying upon the intercession of blessed Michael, Thine Archangel, O Lord, we Thy suppliants pray that what we perform with our lips we may attain with our hearts. Through Our Lord…”
13. These prayers were first promulgated by Pope Leo XIII in 1884 (with St. Michael added in 1886) for use after Low Mass, but are not, strictly speaking, part of the Roman Missal.
14. J. B. O’Connell, The Celebration of Mass, Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company, 1963, pp. 210-11. O’Connell references various decrees of the Sacred Congregation of Rites: SCR 3705, 3855, 3936, 3682, 3805.
15. The frontispiece of the 1570 Missal depicts St. Pius V kneeling in pontifical regalia before the Archangel Michael. See Natalia Nowakowska, ‘From Strassburg to Trent: Bishops, Printing and Liturgical Reform in the Fifteenth Century’, Past & Present, vol. 213, Issue 1, November 2011, p. 27.
16. Pope John XXIII, Meditation on the Guardian Angel, Discorsi, Messaggi, Colloqui del Santo Padre Giovanni XXIII, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, vol II: October 28, 1959- October 28, 1960, p. 762.
17. It would be impossible to exaggerate the depth of the moral crisis in the Church after 50 years of Vatican II’s “softly-softly” approach to evil, i.e., Pope John’s “medicine of mercy.” Some Bishops, alarmed at the state of affairs but oblivious to their part in the crisis, have recommended the Prayer to St Michael after Mass. And Pope Francis conducted a shambolic ceremony in the Vatican Gardens on July 5, 2013, in which he dedicated the 18. Vatican City State to the patronage of St Michael.
Nonetheless, the crisis continues to roar out of control under the leadership of a Pope who, according to authoritative voices in the Church, is actively stoking the fires that continue to produce the smoke of Satan famously mentioned by Paul VI.

[Stone]

Dr. Carol Byrne: A Series on the History of the Dialogue Mass
The Mystery of the Disappearing Pope
Taken from here [slightly adapted - emphasis mine].

When the 1960 Calendar was published by Pope John XXIII, one of his sainted Predecessors was inexplicably missing: Pope St. Leo II (682-683) whose feast day was July 3. What possible excuse could justify the ouster of a Pope of impeccable orthodoxy whom the Liber Pontificalis (The Book of the Pontiffs) describes as “a man of great eloquence, competently versed in Holy Scripture, proficient in Greek and Latin, and distinguished for his chanting and psalmody”? (1)

Pope Leo II: Expelled from the Calendar for condemning Honorius' complicity with heresy

The mystery deepens when we consider that this exemplary Pope was expelled from the Universal Calendar by a later Pope without good reason.

By no stretch of the imagination could Msgr. Bugnini’s fabricated criteria for suppressing feasts be applied to that of St. Leo II. This time there was no question of duplication: It was the only feast of St. Leo II in the Calendar. Nor could it be rejected on the grounds of being “not historical”: The reign of Pope Leo was well documented and his writings preserved.

Any attempt to suppress the feast because it was “not of universal significance” (another of Bugnini’s pretexts to wield the hatchet) would be doomed to failure: Pope Leo’s endorsement of the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680–681) concerned a doctrinal matter which remained binding on all future Popes to uphold.

The situation obviously called for the deployment of all Bugnini’s powers of inventiveness and the use of a technique at which he was particularly adept – the sleight of hand that deceives the eye.


A Game of ‘Liturgical Chairs’

The basic plan was to arrange for 3 Saints – Leo II, Irenaeus and Thomas the Apostle – to contend for 2 dates on the Calendar: June 28 and July 3, with only one Saint being allowed to occupy either day.

Before 1960, June 28 was the feast of St. Irenaeus (2) and July 3 that of St. Leo II. (3) But in the Reform of 1960, St. Irenaeus was moved to July 3 on the excuse that June 28 (the Vigil of Sts. Peter and Paul) should remain free. St. Leo was, therefore, completely supplanted.

St. Thomas the Apostle, St. Iraeneus, Pope St. Leo II - when the game ended, Leo II was left out

Then, in 1969, at the drop of a hat, St. Irenaeus was returned to June 28, which shows that it was not imperative for him to have been moved in the first place. But July 3 was not restored to St. Leo (who was, by then, conveniently forgotten by most people). It was given, instead, to St. Thomas the Apostle who was transferred from his traditional date of December 21.

So, when the music finally stopped, St. Leo II was the one permanently left without a seat, a loss to the Church that went largely unnoticed in the swapping around of Saints’ days in the Calendar. Who now commemorates the feast of St. Leo II, or even knows that the greatest achievement of his pontificate was to confirm the posthumous excommunication of Pope Honorius I for complicity in heresy? (4)

The question remains as to why St. Leo had to be dropped from the Calendar.

When we come to examine the background to the 1960 reforms, we see that St. Leo II was predictably the loser in the game of liturgical chairs even before the music started to play.


In Defense of Pope Leo II

But, first, a few words about Leo II. By excluding Honorius from the Church with the backing of an Ecumenical Council, Pope Leo II was simply fulfilling the highest duty of the Petrine office: to maintain the supernatural unity of the Faith throughout the Church for the good of souls.

Honorius I ‘by profane treachery allowed the purity of Apostolic Tradition to be stained’

As the salvation of souls is the very reason for the establishment and continued existence of the Church, no Pope who fails to take effective steps against those who spread doctrinal error can be considered to have fulfilled the duties of his office. (5)

That was the charge against Pope Honorius – dereliction of duty. He was anathematized by the Sixth Ecumenical Council and by Pope Leo II, not for teaching heresy himself, but for his passive acquiescence and failure to use his authority to repress it. In the words of Pope Leo II, he “did not sanctify this Apostolic Church with the teaching of Apostolic Tradition, but by profane treachery allowed its purity to be stained.” (6)

This verdict was corroborated by the theologian and Doctor of the Church, St. Alphonsus Liguori. (7)


The Difference between Leo II & John XXIII

The difference lies, on the one hand, in Leo II’s robustly traditional refusal to tolerate those who spread heresy or allowed it to take root in the Church and, on the other, John XXIII’s radically altered theology of papal governance (the “softly-softly” approach to error).

John XXIII declared in his opening speech at the Council that the Church “prefers today to make use of the medicine of mercy, rather than of the arms of severity” and to proceed “by showing the validity of her teaching, rather than by issuing condemnations.”

Romano Amerio, a known writer on Vatican II, noted that this position regarding doctrinal error was “a definite novelty, and is openly announced as being a new departure for the Church.” (8)

The departure was from authentic Catholic teaching and practice. The novelty consisted in presenting the condemnation of error – and punishment of its perpetrators – as being opposed to mercy. But, as the Church’s mission is to fight evil and save souls through conversion to the Truth, Pope Leo II’s condemnation of error was itself a Work of Mercy – in fact, one of the Seven Spiritual Works of Mercy.

Romano Amerio, echoing the perennial teaching of the Church, pointed out:

“Two things are needed to maintain truth. First: remove the error from the doctrinal sphere, which is done by refuting erroneous arguments and showing that they are not convincing. Second: remove the person in error, that is, depose him from office, which is done by an act of the Church’s authority.” (9) [Emphasis in the original]

This discrepancy between the two Popes shows the extent to which the “new theology” of Vatican II is irreconcilable with the traditional defense of Catholic doctrine exemplified by Pope Leo II.


The Vatican II Popes Soft on Heresy

Pope Paul VI lamented the massive and open dissent from the teaching of the Magisterium among the Hierarchy. But dissident Bishops, priests, theologians and seminary professors were left in place to go on publicly criticizing and undermining the Church’s teaching, and leading countless souls astray.

Amerio explained how Pope Paul VI dealt with those who rejected the Magisterium:

Above, John XXIII exchanges cordialities with Protestant Roger Schutz; below, Paul VI kisses Schismatic patriarch Athenagoras

“Paul VI preferred to give speeches and warnings which recalled people to their duty without condemning them, made them aware of something without putting them under an obligation, and gave directions without insisting that they be followed.” (10)

It has escaped the notice of most Catholics today that the Pope’s reluctance to apply the penalties of the law against unrepentant dissidents is part of the reason why they persisted in their errors.

All the evidence shows that the new policy of not disciplining and removing dissident clerics has already had the following effects:

• It has given the guilty parties an unmistakable signal that they will go unpunished;
  
• It has led to authority being ignored by those who are bound to obedience to it;
  
• It has brought authority into disrepute;
  
• It has ushered in the reign of liberalism in dogmatic and moral theology;
  
• Anarchy has reigned supreme in dogmatic and moral matters.
  

Before Vatican II, for a Pope even to favor heresy was considered an excommunicable offense. (11) But, in innumerable cases since then, Popes have rewarded progressivists and abandoned or even condemned the defenders of the Catholic Faith.


Exit St. Leo II

The issue at the heart of Pope Leo’s expulsion from the Calendar is the changed concept of the Papacy. This 7th century Pope did not simply admonish, but took firm action against the source and spread of heresy, not sparing one of his Predecessors. He was, therefore, a “sign of contradiction,” a direct affront to the Vatican II Popes who allowed a swarm of heresies to invade and take residence in the Church – all in the cause of Ecumenism, Religious Liberty and Collegiality.

With the disappearance of St. Leo II from the liturgical scene, few people nowadays see the connection between the dogmatic and moral collapse that is evident around us and the failure of the modern Popes to deal effectively with the crisis.

In this new situation, a choice has to be made. Are we for the Catholic Faith or against it? Are we for opposing Honorius (and his modern counterparts), or for allowing them to perpetuate error and heresy? Are we for defending the Church, or for conciliating those who want to destroy it? There is no middle way possible here. This is where the sword of St. Michael divides.

Continued

1. “Vir eloquentissimus, in divinis Scripturis sufficienter instructus, greca latinaque lingua eruditus, cantelena ac psalmodia praecipuus.” See Louis Duchesne (ed.), Le Liber Pontificalis, Paris, 1886-1892, vol. 1, p. 359.
2. This was only so from 1921 when Pope Benedict XV extended his feast (previously celebrated at Lyons) to the Universal Calendar. According to the Roman Martyrology, June 28 was traditionally the feast of St. Leo II at Rome.
3. Ironically, July 3 (1982) was the day Archbishop Bugnini died in Rome. In the current state of the Church, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that he might one day be “canonized” and that this date might become the feast of “Saint Annibale.”
4. This was the Monothelite heresy which arose among the Patriarchs of Constantinople in the 7th century. They recognized the orthodox doctrine of the two natures of Christ (divine and human), but their doctrine that He had only one Will common to both natures was condemned as heretical by the Sixth Ecumenical Council in 681.
5. How seriously the Church regarded this Petrine office can be seen from the words of Pope Leo’s predecessor, Pope St. Agatho (678-681), who addressed the Sixth Ecumenical Council thus:
“Woe is me if I neglect to preach the truth of my Lord, which they [the Roman Pontiffs] preached with sincerity. Woe is me, if I cover the truth in silence… What shall I say in the future examination by Christ himself, if I blush (which God forbid!) to preach here the truth of His words? What satisfaction shall I be able to give for myself, what for the souls committed to me, when He demands a strict account of the office I have received?”
6. He also wrote to the Spanish Bishops, blaming Honorius for not, as befitting his Apostolic authority as Pope, extinguishing the flames of heretical doctrine in the beginning, but fostering them by his negligence.
It is worth noting that one of Leo II’s Predecessors, Pope Martin I (649-655), died a martyr’s death at the hands of the Byzantine Emperor Constans II for having defended the Church against the Monothelite heresy which Pope Honorius had declined to combat.
7. St. Alphonsus stated: “Honorius can, by every right, be cleared from the Monothelite heresy, but still was justly condemned by the Council, as a favorer of heretics, and for his negligence in repressing error.” See The History of Heresies, and their Refutation, or the Triumph of the Church, 2 vols., Dublin: James Duffy, 1847, vol. 1, p. 199.
8. Romano Amerio, Iota Unum: A Study of Changes in the Catholic Church in the 20th Century, Angelus Press, 1999, p. 80.
9. Ibid., p. 145
10. Ibid., p. 146
11. St. Alphonsus Liguori agreed that Pope Honorius “was very properly condemned [by Leo II], for the favorers of heresy and the authors of it are both equally culpable.” (The History of Heresies, and their Refutation, or the Triumph of the Church, p. 194)