Is the Catholic Church under Pope Benedict XVI reversing the reforms of the Vatican II Council in the 1960s?

No

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by Michael Kramer

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Oddly enough, I am also writing from the Springfield-Cape Girardeau Diocese, as someone on the "yes" side is. I moved here about a year ago. I spent most of my life growing up in Miami, Florida. In my 21 years, I have seen Masses all over the Country, in both the Extraordinary and Ordinary Forms of the Roman Rite.

What if I told you that the Church was reversing what happened in the 1960's, but that there is no other possible course since not a single Council document called for what we have today, and the vast majority of the Council Fathers who voted for reform would take back their vote if they could have seen into a crystal ball into todays liturgical madness? In other words, the Holy Father is moving the reform in the direction called for by Vatican Council II. Shocker!

I will have to address both Forms of the Roman Rite. Let's look at the situation surrounding the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite (TLM).

By the grace of God I found this Mass myself when I was 11, on the Internet. My life hasn't been the same since. Before discovering this treasure of the Church, I had no desire to be a priest. Since discovering it, thoughts of the Holy Priesthood continue to resurface in my mind.

In 1969, Pope Paul VI released "Missale Romanum". This document promulgated a new Rite of the Mass. At the time, there was much fuss about wether or not priests could continue to use the TLM. In nearly all cases, the answer came back in the negative. Truly out of character for the Catholic Church, given that Archbishop Sheen explains in a video on the TLM that the Church has a custom of never abolishing a custom or rite in the Mass that comes to us from time immemorial. Pope John Paul II in Ecclesia Dei taught that "respect must be shown everywhere", for those like myself who attend the TLM. Pope Benedict XVI, nearly 40 years after poor management of the reforms in Diocese's around the world, especially concerning the role of the TLM, taught that the previous Missal had never been aborrogated, and hence was "always permitted", and also will soon officially promulgate the first of, God willing, many reforms to the current Missal, the upcoming changes having been initiated by Pope John Paul II.

It is too bad that priests who have since passed into eternity did not have the chance to hear the Holy Father vindicate them. Thousands of priests continued to say the TLM when the new Missal came out. I remember attending one such Mass in Miami. The priest was in his 80's, cast aside, and left to fend for himself essentially, and all because of fidelity to his promises at his Ordination to the Holy Priesthood. I cried during the Mass. I know many buckets of tears were shed in that Chapel over the years by the many faithful who came to witness what many at the time thought through near dispair, was the dying idea of a Catholic priest.

In helping many priests over the years return to the Mass they were Ordained to say, or were baptised in, or most recently, by the grace of God, seminarians who have no experience with the TLM, one comment that continues to come from each of them in conversation with me is that they have either discovered or rediscovered what a priest is. What a sobering thought! With this in mind it is not difficult to see why Sts. Jose Maria Escriva and "Padre Pio" kept the TLM, St. Jose Maria Escriva until the day he died, long after the promulgation of the new Missal. St. Pio following a similar course, kept the TLM until the day he died in 1968 the year of the final transitional changes to the TLM.

To recap in brief then, the TLM was never abolished, or legally discontinued anywhere, as is evidenced not by my mere opinion but by the words of the Holy Father, Benedict XVI himself. Indeed according to St. Pius V no priest of the Roman Rite can ever be forced to use any other way of saying Mass, and according to this same Saint, "should anyone ever dare to order the contrary, let him know that he has incured the WRATH OF ALMIGHTY GOD AND THE HOLY APOSTLES PETER AND PAUL. (emphasis mine) With this in mind, it is easy to see how this is not a reversal of anything authorized by the Council.

Now, onto the modern Missal (NOM). The claim is often made that the changes that occured in our church architecture, Mass, liturgy, discipline, etc, was all authorized and indeed, called for by Vatican Council II. Nothing could be further from the truth. In no Council Document can any of those claims be legitimized. Indeed precisely the contrary is called for. Vatican Council II called for a retention of Latin as the language to be used during the Mass with some introduction of vernacular. Vatican Council II nowhere authorized the movement of the Tabernacle to obscure locations in the Church, so called "altar girls", Holy Communion in the hand, or having the priest offer the Holy Mass "facing the people", etc. Each of these things and numerous other abuses were a product of the psuedo-liturgists that came after Vatican Council II, imposing their agenda against the actual Documents of the Council. Now, in 2008 we have the heretical ideas that Jesus Christ is not TRULY present in the Blessed Sacrament, or that women can be priests, and numerous other heresies, all stemming from seemingly minor changes.

Regarding the NOM itself. In its official version promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1969, the words used in the promulgated text (yes the NOM was promulgated in LATIN!), are translated into English faithfully by the new translations. Any elementary Latin student knows that "et cum sprituo tuo" has to translate with the word "spirit" in it. The other CORRECTIONS to the current faulty "translation" are all expressing what the prayers actually say and not what a liturgist or linguist willed them to say. My favorite and most grave example of this is the Consecration of the wine. "Pro multis" translates as "for many". Again, this can be attested to by a basic understanding of the Latin language, and yet somehow we got "for all", which would be "pro omnibus" in Latin. This is a grave problem that again has led to people with heretical agendas running with a seemingly minor change. Indeed, many saints taught throughout the centuries why the words "for all" were NOT used.

Regarding the direction of the priest during the Holy Mass. Facing east is an immemorial custom, began by the martyrs in the catacombs. Eastern Catholicism (with the Maronite exception), and Orthodoxy continue to face East during their Divine Liturgy. Indeed many Roman Rite Churches around the world retain this practice as well. The contrary practice is damaging to both the peoples minds and the mind of the priest. In no document on the Reform is this practice called for. Indeed, to this day when offering the NOM the priest sees in the books "now turn to the people and say "Dominus Vobiscum" (or a translation of that text). "Facing the people" is a modern invention, and again, has done nothing but damage peoples faith.

It is a given that parish priests today are assumed to have little to no training in the Latin language. This is in direct violation of Blessed Pope John XXIII Encyclical on the Latin Language promulgated right at Vatican Council II's doorstep. It is also in direct violation of the Council's document on the on the Sacred Liturgy that teaches that Latin is to be retained.

To recap in brief then, the NOM of Paul VI is experienced in a handful of parishes in this Country the way he promulgated it. St. John Cantius in Chicago offers the Mass in the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms in Latin, "facing the altar", or more properly put as our Holy Father Benedict XVI teaches, "turning towards the Lord". The CORRECTIONS that parishes will soon be experiencing are indeed corrections, not changes, and not a turning away from any officially sanctioned Vatican Council II changes.

Now, I cannot conclude without addressing the idea of active participation. Active participation has been addressed by Pope St. Pius X, Blessed Pope Pius XI, and Venerable Pope Pius XII. All three taught that active participation is an interior participation in the Sacrifice of Christ. All three encouraged the people sing, make responses, and indeed there are more responses to made and more things to be sung in the TLM than in the NOM. So if one wanted to participate in a more vocal manner, the TLM would be the more logical choice. Pope Pius XII teaches:

"In this most important subject it is necessary, in order to avoid giving rise to a dangerous error, that we define the exact meaning of the word 'offer.' The unbloody immolation at the words of consecration, when Christ is made present upon the altar in the state of a victim, is performed by the priest and by him alone, as the representative of Christ and not as the representative of the faithful. It is because the priest places the divine Victim upon the altar that he offers it to God the Father as an oblation for the glory of the Blessed Trinity and for the good of the whole Church. Now the faithful participate in the oblation, understood in this limited sense, after their own fashion and in a twofold manner, namely because they not only offer the Sacrifice by the hands of the priest, but also, to a certain extent, in union with him. It is by reason of this participation, that the offering made by the people is also included in liturgical worship."

In conlusion then, the corrections to the NOM ordered by the Vatican, are indeed not a reversal of anything called for in the Reform, but simply pulling the ship back on course. The reintroduction of the TLM on a large scale should never have had to occue, it never should have left, and indeed legally never did. Other practices, such as the wearing of the cassock by seminarians and priests, quiet in church before and after Holy Mass, the wearing of the chapel veil by women in the presense of God etc are again, not a reversal of anything, because none of these things were ever called to stop. The Pope is guiding the ship back on course, in line with Vatican II as is his responsibility and his immortal soul will be judged on his fidelity to his mission by Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ.

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