CRANMER AND THE NEW MASS OF PAUL VI

 

We now allow ourselves to present the translation of a commentary, written by Hugh Ross Williamson, an Anglican convert to Catholicism, which shows us the terrible denunciation of the Roman theologians:

 

1.-Cranmer's goal.

An English historian is able to base his suspicions on recent liturgical changes in the Catholic Church. He knows what has happened, in his country, in the past and the consequences of those events explain his religious background very well. What he does not always understand is that there are so few, although specialists in these matters, who are interested in circumscribing this historical issue and that there are many who, not out of bad faith, but out of ignorance, adhere to opinions that the truth generally condemns. Therefore, I propose here to expose, with a simple method, the way by which the faith was destroyed in England, by orders, whose main responsibility rests with Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who enjoyed all power in the religious sphere. , from 1547 to 1553.

( Thomas Cranmer  ( Aslockton , July 2, 1489 ^Jul. - Oxford , March 21, 1556 ^Jul . ) ^To b was a  priest  English  and  Archbishop of Canterbury  during the reigns of  Henry VIII ,  Edward VI  and  Mary I  -for little more than a year. ”He collaborated in the  annulment of the marriage  of Henry VIII and  Catherine of Aragon , which was one of the  causes of the schism  between the  Church of England  and the  Holy See . Thomas Cromwell , supported the principle of  royal supremacy , in which the monarch was considered sovereign over the Church within his kingdom.

During his tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury he was responsible for establishing the first doctrinal and liturgical structures of the  Reformed church . He did not make radical changes in the Church during the reign of Henry VIII, due to power conflicts between conservatives and religious reformers. Nevertheless, he succeeded in publishing the first authorized vernacular religious service  ,  Exhortation and Litany . When Edward VI came to the throne, Cranmer was able to promote important reforms. He wrote and compiled the first two editions of the  Book of Common Prayer, a special liturgy for the Church of England. With the help of various continental reformers, to whom he gave refuge, he changed doctrine in areas such as the  Eucharist ,   clerical celibacy , the role of  images  in places of worship, and the  veneration of saints . Cranmer promulgated the new doctrines through the Book of Common Prayer , the  Book of Homilies,  and other publications.

He was tried for high  treason  and  heresy  when the Catholic  Mary I ascended to the throne  . Imprisoned for more than two years and under pressure from ecclesiastical authorities, Cranmer made several retractions and apparently reconciled with the  Catholic Church . However, on the day of his execution, he retracted his words in prison and perished as a heretic to the Catholics and a martyr to the English reformers. Cranmer's death was immortalized in  The Book of Martyrs  and his legacy lives on within the Church of England in his  Book of Common Prayer  and the " thirty-nine articles", A statement of the Anglican faith based on his work.)

Cranmer was sincere in declaring his intentions and never intended to hide his opinion, according to which, the power "of the great prostitute, that is, the pestiferous See of Rome" rests "on the popal doctrine of" transubstantiation ", of the Real Presence of the flesh and blood of Christ, in the sacrament of the altar (as they call it) and in the sacrifice and oblation of Christ, made by the priest, for the salvation of the living and the dead ". This was what had to be destroyed. The people must know that Christ is not in the Sacrament, but only in those who worthily receive it."Eating and drinking the flesh and blood of Christ, should not be understood, according to the ordinary sense, with the mouth and the teeth, to eat a thing that is present, but with a living faith, in the heart and in the mind, to digest something that is  absent ". The new rite, which Cranmer invented to substantiate this belief, "the administration of the sacrament" was to have nothing resembling the "never sufficiently execrated Mass." And the one who in the Mass "offers a Sacrifice to God the Father, namely, the Body and Blood of the Lord, really and truly, in order to obtain the forgiveness of sins and to obtain the salvation of the living and the dead (3) "was declared by Cranmer as a heresy, worthy of the death penalty.

This was Cranmer's goal. The three main means that he used to carry out his program were: the use of the vernacular, the substitution of the altar for the holy table, and the changes made to the Canon of the Mass.

11. THE VERNACULAR LANGUAGE

  Translation of the Bible into the vernacular had been around in England since the days of Saxon. Long before Wyclif made his "translation" in 1380, there were, as Saint Thomas More notes, English translations, done "by virtuous and wise men" and by good and well-meaning people, before Wyclif had the sinister purpose to make a new one "for which it would not be convenient to translate the Bible into the English language", because "there is no book of Sacred Scripture so difficult to read, in which a good and virtuous man, or a woman, does not he may find in it something profitable or delightful, to increase his devotion. "What had to be fought were the deliberate false translations of the Bible, made for" perverse purposes. " This is the key to understanding and explaining the insistent anti-Catholic demands for the use of the vernacular in the 16th century.

The translation made by William Tyndale, one of Cranmer's associates, was burned by the Catholic authorities. When St. Thomas More was questioned about this, he replied: "It is a great surprise to me that any Christian, who has a little intelligence in his head, can marvel or complain that this book has been burned, if he knew anyone. the bottom line. Those who called the New

Testament, they called it a wrong name, they should call it the Tyndale Testament or the Luther Testament. Because Tyndale, following Luther's advice, has corrupted and changed the New Testament, the good and wholesome doctrine of Christ, at will, to teach the diabolical heresies, invented by them, which, in good words, are the opposite of what that Christ has taught. " Looking for St. Thomas More some examples to demonstrate these pernicious changes, made by Tyndale, in his translation, choose and point to these three words: The first, he writes, is the word" priest "; the second, the word. "Church" and the third, the word "charity" a "priests" the Tyndale always called "the oldest”, to "Church "always calls it"the congregation", "the assembly”; and "charity", "love". Now these names, in our English language, do not express, in any way, the things that they want to be expressed; and it is clearly seen, considering the circumstances, that he has a harmful mind, making these changes. "

Tyndale provided his translation with abundant notes, such as the one stating that the Mass, as celebrated before his reforms, was "a nod, a growl, a beckoning, a game of monkeys." Those of us who still believe in the traditional faith, those of us who want to practice it, are, according to Tyndale, "beasts that do not have the Spirit of God, but are marked with the seal of the BEAST and with gangrenous consciences."

But much more damaging than these sarcastic comments were, as Saint Thomas More notes, the false translations of Tyndale and Cranmer, who followed him, in a translation of his published six years later, deliberately made with the manifest aim of uprooting the Catholic doctrine of the people. The words of Sacred Scripture, which meant "idols", they translated as "images", to combat in this way the traditional veneration of the Sacred Images, the cult of saints and the cult of latria, which the Catholic Church tributes to the Most Sacred Humanity of Christ. The word confession, which in traditional language suggested the sacrament of Penance, becomes, in their language, "recognition." The great and fundamental words of the Gospel "grace"and "salvation" are translated as "favor" and "health". The word, which should designate the "priest" is interpreted as "the oldest", and that of "Church" as that of "congregation" or "assembly". And he adds: "By the word" priest "in the New Testament, nothing is meant other than" the oldest to teach the youngest. "the oldest to teach the youngest. "the oldest to teach the youngest. "

He also says that the two sacraments, ordained by Christ, baptism and holy communion, are nothing other than "the preaching of the promises of Christ." So also to give another example - the apostolic notice, in the Letter of James, which says: "Is anyone among you sick? Call the priests of the Church and pray for him, anointing him with oil, in the name of the Lord, These words are an obvious reference to the sacrament of Extreme Unction and no matter how much Tyndale says, they cannot be interpreted otherwise, but "priests of the Church". Wyclif himself, in his first translation, did not accept the meaning that Cranmer and his followers would give it later, but correctly translated "priests of the Church." But, in the versions of Tyndale and Cranmer, instead of "priests", he put "the oldest of the assembly".

Thus, Protestants could appeal to the Bible, in its vernacular translation and thus bring the testimony of the New Testament, which is no legitimate reference, to justify their anti-Catholic teachings and the practices of the disputed doctrines. And when these biased and false translations of the Bible were rightly challenged and suppressed by Catholic authorities, Catholics were further accused of "wanting to prevent the people from reading the Bible." That was how simple his ruse was; and the effectiveness of this double lie remained so firm that, after four centuries, we still hear its echo.

  At the heart of the problem of the vernacular Mass is the vernacular narrative of the institution of the Eucharist. It is not just that the whispered Canon, which has been the rule since the eighth century, must now be abandoned, but that the English formula: "Do this in memory of Me" be heard "distinctly." by the assembly.

The Greek word anamnesis, which is translated "in memory of," is hardly interpreted in the English language. Words like "memory", "recollection", "memorial" imply the existence of something that is absent in itself, while anamnesis has the sense of "remembering", "re-presenting" (making again present) a past event, in such a way that it is actively present again. This idea, this sense is not adequately expressed even in the Latin word "memory". The English words "recal" and "represent" are insufficient, without further explanation, although they are written "recal", "represent", and "I remember", "memory "and" memorial " by their conventional and common sense use, they are currently equivocal and, therefore, inadmissible.

"The intelligence of the Eucharistic expression" through the anamnesis of Me "as a representation or active remembrance, before God, of the unique sacrifice of Christ, in all the fullness of its realization and its effects is, as a theologian says, clearly expressed in all the traditions of the early Church. " In the words of Saint John Chrysostom: "We also offer now, what was offered, what cannot be exhausted.

This is done by an anamnesis of what was done then, because Jesus said: "Do this, by an anamnesis of Me." So we do not offer a different sacrifice, as the High Priest did in the Old Testament, but we offer the same sacrifice.

Or, rather, we offer the anamnesis of the Sacrifice. " (These last words refer to the Tridentine rite, but by no means to the new rite. In the writing:" The new mass is valid or invalid "is the definition of the true Sacrifice and what Paul VI introduced, I leave you this reference to understand what Cranmer means here)

Cranmer, who wanted to uproot any idea of ​​the Mass as a sacrifice, to replace it with the theory of a mere memorial dinner, in which Christ is not really present, except spiritually, in the hearts of the faithful, not he was able to find a more powerful bomb than the suppression of the Silent Canon, in favor of his Institutional narrative in English, his reiterated formula "Do this in memory of Me." In the great silence with which the ancient Canon was said, any faithful moderately instructed in the meaning of such a great Moment, knew, even if he did not know form, what was happening. But now, he can hear and know that a memorial dinner is being held. The Bible says so. Now you are invited to remember something that happened two thousand years ago, in the past. And this interpretation, in Cranmer's liturgy, is emphasized by the words that the minister said when giving Communion: "Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for you, and feed on Him, in your heart by faith, with thanksgiving”.

The imposition of the new Prayer Book, in vernacular took place throughout the country on June 9, 1549, Sunday in albis. The following day the Devonshire Peasant Corps, having contemplated the new rite, compelled their pastor to reestablish the old Mass. In ten days, the armed people (possibly six thousand, it is difficult to determine the number) seized Crediton and threatened Exeter. Their demands were simple and precise, and related only to faith. They demanded the restoration of the Mass "as before" and that the Blessed Sacrament should again be reserved in a prominent place. "We will not accept, they said, the new rites, because they are like a Christmas game, but we will have our old rites, Matins, Mass, Vespers and Processions (litanies of Our Lady) in Latin and we will make each preacher in his sermon and each priest at his Mass pray nominally for the souls in purgatory, as did our ancestors. " Baptism should be administered" the same on weekdays as on Sundays and holidays. "The blessings customary and practiced by the Church should be reestablished. , just as palms and ash are to be distributed, at established times, with "all the ancient ceremonies hitherto used by our Mother, the Holy Church" (which Cranmer had suppressed as "superstitious.) 

Cranmer was enraged, not only by these demands, but even more so by the fact that ignorant peasants, "Hob, Will, and Dick" had dared to question his theology. That is why he wrote to them:"Oh ignorant men of Devonshire and Cronwall, as soon as I knew your articles, I thought you were being deceived by some cunning Papists, who persuaded you to demand what you yourselves did not understand you were demanding. Declare what spirit could move those people to persuade you that the word of God is nothing but a Christmas game. It is more than a game and a ridiculous comedy to hear the priest speak aloud to the people in Latin. In English services there is nothing but the Eternal Word of God If it seems like a Christmas game to you, I think that you should not be blamed for this, but the papist priests, who have abused your sincerity.

Would you like better to be like magpies or like parrots, who are taught to speak, without ever understanding a word of what they say, or to be true Christians, who ask God with faith? " (¿Weren’t they almost told Or even those who started the “new rite” and continue saying it now to those who want to resume or the old rite? It is very likely that worse epithets are said than those that Cranmer referred to these peasants)

The rebels, in their simple faith, ignored the wise Archbishop. Cranmer had to resort to force of arms. Mercenary foreigners, mainly German Lutherans, were employed on English territory for the first time in three hundred years and the last stronghold of the faith was struck down in battle. "The slaughter, in the memorable words of Hilaire Belloc, was indiscriminate:" Four thousand people were shot or dragged or hanged, before the men of Devon accepted, without any enthusiasm, Cranmer's exquisite prose. "And the story tells us It says that the Italian and Spanish adventurers, who were reinforcing the ranks of Germans, when they realized what had happened, went to the Imperial Nuncio to ask for the absolution of what they had done.

When the news of the victory of the vernacular reached London, Cranmer "made a Supper in Paul's choir for the victory" and in the sermon before the Lord Mayor and Regidor, the Cardinal Archbishop admonished his listeners, saying: " The plague of division among us, whose delight had not been heard since the Passion of Christ, has come to us at the instigation of the Devil, for not having been diligent hearers of the Word of God, offered to us by its true preachers, but we have carried away by the papist priests ".

It is evident that it was false that the people did not understand the Latin Mass. The circulation of books of devotion and instruction in a population of three million can be calculated from the fact that, in the holocaust of science and Catholic piety, which was part of Protestant politics, more than a quarter of a million were burned. of liturgical books. A year after the dictatorial imposition of the first Prayer Book, in 1550, Cranmer sent commissioners to the universities. At Oxford, thousands of books were destroyed. Cambridge suffered a slower, but more drastic dispossession, which can be suspected from the fact that, early in Elizabeth's reign, only about 177 "semi-destroyed and stained" volumes were found.(Not for nothing is it said that the "New Mass" is a setback to Cranmer's reforms because since its imposition by Paul VI, countless Missals in Latin language, devotionals and so many other books have been destroyed whose crime was to be written in Latin at the same time. how much hatred these reformers manifested. We could ask ourselves, how many Missals written with the venerable Latin rite are found in the world? Every year that passes it is more difficult for us to find them and if they are, few are those that are in excellent condition, what Does this tell us that the modernists are worse than all these reformers.)  The result was inevitable. A Protestant preacher, in a sermon preached before the king, stated:

"There is entering England more blind ignorance, superstition and infidelity, than ever was under the rule of the Roman bishops. Your kingdom (he stated regretfully) will become more barbarous than that of Scythia." Another, deploring the multiplicity of sects, an inevitable consequence of Cranmer's policy, complained: "There are Arians, Marcionists, libertines, Davists, and numerous other such monstrosities! We have needed help against sectarians and Epicureans and pseudo-evangelicals, who have started to shake our churches with greater violence than ever.

One of the reasons for the destruction of the books was the law given by Cranmer, because "the news had been spread and spread that the people would return to their old Latin rite" and it was necessary to make the people "completely discard the vain expectation of once again having public service and the administration of the sacraments in the Latin language. " The law ordered that all the liturgical or devotional books in Latin be handed over to the authorities "to mutilate and destroy them, so that they could never serve their intended use." There was an exception: copies in Latin or English of the Prime Minister of Henry VIII were allowed, as long as all mention of the saints was suppressed.

Because Cranmer hated the saints, almost as he hated the Mass and one of the advantages of his vernacular translations was to be able to publish a new litany, in which all the names of the saints were omitted as well as the invocations of the Blessed Virgin. , and in which the petition was added: "From the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities, good Lord, deliver us", which plea could easily be "understood by the people", each time it was said, Wednesdays and Fridays. "