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miércoles, 10 de noviembre de 2021

CAN THE MOTU PROPRIO "CUSTODES TRADICIONIS" REPEAL THE MASS OF SAINT PIO V? NOT REALLY.

 

A popular saying goes: "After the storm came the calm." The motu proprio of Francisco "Custodes Tradicionis" raised a lot of excitement among Catholics at the time and was seen as an imminent final blow to the Holy Tridentine Mass and its holy liturgy.

Humans have the facility to forget the history of the Church and we see as a first terrible threat to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass without remembering that, in past times, it has received attacks in order to consummate the work of the devil, well explained by Martin Luther with these words: "Destroy the mass and you will destroy the Church."

On the other hand, it is not the first "Motu proprio" with this diabolical purpose and other Pontiffs such as John Paul II and Benedict XVI also did their thing against this venerable Rite of the Mass.

Divine providence, in all these acts of sabotage by the enemy, has always aroused churchmen who have come to its defense and attacking, in turn, the new mass or "Novus ordo" spoken so far in the vernacular. This first defense was made during the Second Vatican Council, where, by unanimous vote, the new rite was lost and the Tridentine Rite was affirmed. Not content with this, the orthodox or traditionalist Fathers insisted on making public their discontent with Paul VI and leaving to future generations a testimony of a courageous defense of the Rite of Always, all summarized in a small book entitled:

 

BRIEF CRITICAL EXAMINATION ON THE NEW MASS.

 

To which traditionalist Catholics we wholeheartedly adhere as a courageous protest against the abuses of these "authorities" who are in no way different from those who, at the time, sought to carry out Satan's masterstroke. Given this, we take as our own the words of the great apostle of the nations, Saint Paul:

"I conjure you before God and Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, both in his appearance and in his kingdom: preach the word, urge in time and out of season, rebuke, censure, exhort with all patience and doctrine ... ( II, Tim, 1-5)

This has been my objective and I have tried to be faithful to it in all my writings related to the imminent danger that the modernist mass represents for true Catholics or, also, the so-called "Mass of Paul VI". It is for this reason that I return to the charge attacking these modernist masses in order to show to friends and strangers the spiritual dangers to which our soul exposes if it continues to drink from this cloudy and poisoned source.

In a first installment I will present the brief critical examination assigned to Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani and Antonio Bacci, but which, it is said, was written by Bishop Marcel Lefebvre and another great French theologian and we will continue this same theme with another very important work entitled "La Mass of Paul VI "

Note 2. The italicized type is the editor's comment on this short critical review.

Preface

 

Letter to Paul VI from Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci

 

Holiness,

 

After having examined and had the new Ordo Missae prepared by the experts of the Commission for the application of the Conciliar Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy examined, and after having reflected and prayed for a long time, we feel the obligation before God and Your Holiness to express the following considerations:

1. As sufficiently evidenced by the attached critical examination, however brief it may be, the work of a select group of theologians, liturgists and pastors of souls, the new Ordo Missae - if one considers the new elements susceptible of very diverse appraisals, which appear in he understood or implied– it is an impressive departure, both as a whole and in detail, from the Catholic theology of Holy Mass as formulated by the 20th session of the Council of Trent which, by definitively setting the "canons" of the rite, raised an insurmountable barrier against any heresy that could threaten the integrity of the Mystery.

2. The pastoral reasons attributed to justify such a serious rupture, although they may have value in the face of doctrinal reasons, do not seem sufficient. So many novelties appear in the new Ordo Missae and, in turn, 2. The pastoral reasons attributed to justify such a serious rupture, although they may have value in the face of doctrinal reasons, do not seem sufficient. In the new Ordo Missae there appear so many novelties and, in turn, so many eternal things are relegated to a lower or different place - if they continue to occupy any - that the doubt that unfortunately insinuates in many could be reinforced or changed with certainty. areas according to which the truths that the Christian people have always believed could be changed or silenced without this implying infidelity to the sacred deposit of doctrine, to which the Catholic faith is forever linked.

The recent reforms have sufficiently demonstrated that the new changes in the liturgy cannot be carried out without leading to the complete confusion of the faithful, who already state that they are unbearable and that their faith is undeniably diminishing. In the best part of the clergy this is manifested by a torturous crisis of conscience, of which we have innumerable and daily testimonies.

3. We are sure that these considerations, directly inspired by what we hear from the vibrant voices of the shepherds and the flock, must find an echo in the paternal heart of Your Holiness, always so deeply concerned with the spiritual needs of the children of church.

The subjects, for whose sake the law is made, always have the right and, more than the right, they must - in the event that the law turns out to be harmful - to ask with filial confidence its abrogation from the legislator.

For this reason, we urgently beg Your Holiness not to allow, - at a time when the purity of faith and the unity of the Church suffer such cruel lacerations and ever-increasing dangers, that every day they find a distressed echo in the words of the Common parent–,

May we not be deprived of the possibility of continuing to make use of the complete and fruitful Roman Missal of Saint Pius V, so praised by Your Holiness and so deeply venerated and loved by the entire Catholic world.

The Episcopal Synod convened in Rome in October 1967 had to pronounce a judgment on the experimental celebration of a mass called "normative mass." This mass had been prepared by the Commission for the application of the Council's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy.

That Mass caused enormous perplexity among the members of the Synod: a lively opposition (43 non placet), many and substantial reservations (62 juxta modum) and 4 abstentions, out of a total of 187 voters.

 

The international news press spoke of a "rejection" by the Synod. The innovative trend presses quietly passed the event. A well-known newspaper, intended for the bishops and expressing their teaching, summarized the new rite in these terms: «The intention is to make a clean sweep of all the theology of the Mass. In short, it is close to the Protestant theology that destroyed the sacrifice of the Mass”.

In the Ordo Missae promulgated by the Apostolic Constitution Missale romanum of April 3, 1969, we find, identical in substance, the "normative mass." It does not appear that the Episcopal Conferences as such have been consulted on this matter in the interval.

The Apostolic Constitution Missale romanum affirms that the ancient Missal promulgated by Saint Pius V (Bull Quo Primum, July 14, 1570), –but that it dates largely to Saint Gregory the Great and even to a greater antiquity 1– has been during four centuries the norm of the celebration of the Sacrifice for priests of the Latin rite. The Apostolic Constitution Missale romanum adds that, in this Missal, spread throughout the earth, "innumerable saints nourished their piety and their love of God."

And yet, "since the desire to promote the sacred liturgy began to be affirmed and spread among the Christian people," according to the Constitution itself, the reform that aims to put that Missal definitively out of use would have become necessary.

This last statement clearly contains a serious misunderstanding.

Well, although the Christian people expressed their desire, they did so –mainly at the impulse of Saint Pius X– when they set out to discover the authentic and immortal treasures of their liturgy.

Never, absolutely never, did the Christian people ask that, in order to make it better understood, the liturgy be changed or mutilated. What he asks to understand better is the unique and unchanging liturgy, which he would never have wanted to see changed.

The Roman Missal of Saint Pius V was very dear to the hearts of Catholics, priests and laity, who venerated it religiously. It is not understood in what way this Missal, accompanied by an appropriate initiation, could hinder a greater participation and a better knowledge of the sacred liturgy; It is not understood why, at the same time that it is recognized as great merits as the Constitution Missale romanum does, it is judged that he is not capable of continuing to nourish the liturgical life of the Christian people.

It turns out, then, that the Episcopal Synod had rejected that "normative Mass", and now it is substantially recovered and imposed with the new Ordo Missae, without ever having been subjected to the collegial judgment of the Episcopal Conferences.

Never have the Christian people (and especially in the missions) wanted any reform of the Holy Mass. It is therefore not possible to discern the reasons for the new legislation that ends a tradition of which the Missale romanum Constitution itself recognizes that it had remained unchanged since the 4th or 5th centuries.

Consequently, since the reasons for such reform do not exist, the reform itself appears devoid of a reasonable foundation that, justifying it, would make it acceptable to the Christian people.

The Council had clearly expressed, in No. 50 of its Constitution on the liturgy, the desire that the various parts of the Mass be revised "So that the sense of each of the parties and their mutual connection is manifested with greater clarity." We do not see how the new Ordo Missae responds to those wishes, of which we can say that there are, in fact, no memories left.

1 The prayers of the Roman Canon are found in the treatise De Sacramentis (late 4th and early 5th centuries). Our Mass goes back, without any essential change, to the time when it first assumed the developed form of the older common liturgy. It still preserves the perfume of that primitive liturgy, contemporary to the days when the Caesars ruled the world and hoped to be able to extend the Christian faith; and to the days when our ancestors gathered before dawn to sing the hymn of Christ, whom they recognized as their God (cf. Pliny the Younger, Ep. 96). In all Christendom there is no rite as venerable as the Roman Mass (A. Fortescue, The Mass, a study of the Roman Liturgy, 1912). «The Roman Canon, as it is today, dates back to Saint Gregory the Great. There is neither in the East nor in the West any Eucharistic prayer that, remaining in use to this day, can invoke such antiquity. Not only according to the opinion of the Orthodox but also according to the opinion of the Anglicans and even of those among the Protestants who have kept some sense of tradition, to reject this Canon would be equivalent on the part of the Roman Church to renounce forever the claim. to represent the true Catholic Church ”(P. Louis Bouyer).

 

Close examination of the new Ordo Missae reveals changes of such importance that they justify the same judgment that was made on the "normative mass."

 

The new Ordo Missae, like the "normative mass, "has in many respects been written to please the more modernist Protestants”.

 

II

 

Let's start with the DEFINITION OF THE MASS. It is found in No. 7 of Chapter 2 of the General Regulation. This chapter is entitled "Structure of the Mass."

This is the definition:

 

«The Lord's Supper, or Mass, is the sacred assembly 2 or congregation of the people of God, gathered under the presidency of the priest to celebrate the memorial of the Lord 3. Hence it is eminently valid, when speaking of the local assembly of the Holy Church, that promise of Christ: ―Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them‖ (Mt 18:20) ». 2

The definition of the Mass is therefore reduced to a "supper": and this appears continuously (in numbers 8, 48, 55, 56 of the General Ordination).

This "dinner" is further described as an assembly presided over by the priest; assembly gathered to carry out "the memorial of the Lord", which recalls what was done on Holy Thursday.

All this does not imply either a real Presence, nor the reality of the Sacrifice, nor the sacramental character of the priest who consecrates, nor the intrinsic value of the Eucharistic Sacrifice independently of the presence of the assembly 4.

In short, this new definition does not contain any of the dogmatic elements essential to the Mass and that constitute its true definition. 5. The omission of these dogmatic elements in such a place can only be voluntary.

Such voluntary omission means its "overcoming" and, at least in practice, its denial.

In the second part of the new definition, the misunderstanding is further aggravated, since it is stated that the assembly in which the Mass consists "eminently" realizes the promise of Christ: "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in their midst." Now this promise formally refers to the spiritual presence of Christ by virtue of grace.

Note. In the next installment, the commentary on these paragraphs will come first and, second, more material for the brief critical examination.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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