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Sunday, March 5, 2023

Sunday Meditation: Did You think the Council Fathers Created the Novus Ordo? Think Again!

Father Terrence Keehan, pastor of Holy Family Catholic Church in Inverness, Illinois, uses a guitar to give the final blessing at a Mass livestreamed on Feb. 13. (photo: Screenshot of YouTube video / Screenshot of YouTube video via CNA)

Have you ever read the Vatican II (VII) documents on the sacraments, beginning with the Constitution on the Liturgy, Sacrosantum Concilium (SC published December 4, 1963)? It outlined the guidelines to be followed in revising the mass. The Novus Ordo (NO) did not spring up like the Phoenix as the council ended; it was the product of a committee with its major architect Annibale Bugnini who wanted to eliminate anything that could possibly be a stumbling block to Protestants. 

The council fathers provided the general "principles and norms which can and should be applied...to the Roman rite." They did not develop or design the NO which cannot accurately be called the Mass of Vatican II. It is anything but! Every Catholic should read the Constitution to realize the bait and switch fraud perpetrated on pewsitters by Bugnini and his cohorts. 

So...what did the Council Fathers say?

First of all they pointed out that the "liturgy is made up of unchangeable elements divinely instituted, and of elements subject to change...In this restoration both texts and rites should be drawn up so as to express more clearly the holy things which they signify."

"Holy Things?"

They went on with general norms of which I'll emphasize a few:

1. Regulation of the liturgy belongs to the authority of the Church, the Apostolic See and, according to Church law [and] the bishops..."Therefore no other person, not even a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority."

2. "[T]here must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them, and care must be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing."

3. "The use of the Latin language...is to be preserved in the Latin rites." The vernacular "may" be more widely used "especially in readings, directives and in some prayers and chants."

4. "[C]are must be taken to ensure that the faithful may also be able to say or sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them."

5. "The treasury of sacred music is to be preserved and cultivated with great care...The Church reognizes Gregorian chant as being specially suited to the Roman liturgy. Therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services."

There's plenty more, but this smattering indicates just how little attention Bugnini and company gave to the council fathers' instructions before they proceeded to wreck the mass!

As Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict) wrote in a 1976 letter:

The way in which the new Missal was introduced departs from previous ecclesiastical legal customs, such as those observed by Pius V in his missal reform…. The problem of the new Missal lies in the fact that it breaks away from this continuous history, which has always gone on before and after Pius V, and creates a thoroughly new book (albeit from old material), the appearance of which is accompanied by a type of prohibition of what has gone before that is quite unheard-of in the history of ecclesiastical law and liturgy. I can say with certainty from my knowledge of the Council debate and from rereading the speeches of the Council Fathers delivered at that time that this was not intended [by them].

Got that? The NO was not an organic development of doctrine as the mass-wreckers so often claim. It "breaks away from the continuous history...and creates a thoroughly new book... accompanied by a type of prohibition of what has gone before that is quite unheard-of in the history of ecclesiastical law and liturgy."

And the Council Fathers had no intention of creating what became a stage open to rampant liturgical abuse to the point where a priest would bless people with a guitar and wear a clown nose or clown wig to offer the liturgy. Are these "innovations" that contribute to the "good of the Church?"

More on Vatican II coming! See how some of the council fathers, besides Cardinal Ratzinger, reacted when the new mass was sprung on them. They were not happy. So why did so many go along with it and do so little to suppress the abuses? And why do they continue to allow liturgical abuse today?

Good questions!

10 comments:

  1. And yet, when he had the supreme authority to undo the damage by formally abrogating the NO and returning to the TLM, Benedict did... nothing.

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  2. I agree, Anonymous, that Benedict could have done more. But to be fair, how could he abrogate the Novus Ordo when most of the priests didn't know how to offer the TLM? Perhaps requiring training in the seminary could have been the initial step. But that's water over the dam. He certainly helped keep the TLM not only to continue, but to expand. Whatever his credit or blame, he is receiving it now. I pray for the repose of his soul and thank God for many of his very clear writings.

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  3. If you are a New Ager influenced by the thought of Karl Jung, a disciple of Sigmund Freud but with his own ideas, then you accept the notion that the Collective Unconscious of a group of people can conjure something beyond what they would consciously desire. For example, as a New Ager influenced by Jung told me, the Collective Unconcious of the Poeple at Fatima, Portigal, on that October 1917 day conjured up the miracle of the Sun dancing in the sky and then plummeting towrd the Earth. I do not know how he could explain the miraculous drying and cleaning of the rain soaked and muddy clothing od those kneeliog in the rain.

    Thus, the Collective Unconscious of the bishops at Vatican II comjured up the Novus Ordo Liturgy, which they would not have consciosly desired. In reality while the Council Fathers wers debating the above specifics of the Liturgy Constitution, a group of litniks under th direction of Annibale (aka "Hannibal the Liiurgical Cannibal") Bugnini were putting the "finishing touches" of the Novus Ordo Liturgy!

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  4. The popes could have very easily stopped a lot of the mess simply by not allowing altars to be ripped out and replaced with tables, keeping the Mass ad orientem with communion rails, and no communion in the hand. These abuses were allowed for a reason.

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  5. The priests didn't know how to celebrate the New Mass but that didn't stop Paul VI from successfully making it universally mandatory only a few months after approving it. But, as you say, it's water over the dam. Everything will work out in God's time.

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  6. I don’t think Bugninny cared a hoot about the Protestants. He attempted to lead the diabolical Masonic infiltration of the One Holy Catholic Church of Jesus Christ. His foolery will not stand and so far our Lord Jesus has allowed the Latin mass to continue. Keep fighting everyone, keep praying and keep the faith. Latin is a consecrated language of unity. Pray for our beautiful Church, for Holy Priests and for seminarians. God bless us and the Virgin protect us.

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  7. "1. Regulation of the liturgy belongs to the authority of the Church, the Apostolic See and, according to Church law [and] the bishops..."

    So Paul the V who changed it.

    "Therefore no other person, not even a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority."

    But Paul the V did it and he was pope. So......

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  8. Do you mean Pius V? He regularized the Mass so that everyone was saying the same one since innovations were creeping in from the Protestant revolt. I'm unfamiliar with Paul V.

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  9. Vatican 2 was tainted from the get-go by the refusal to condemn communism. The Protestant and Jewish "advisers" were just icing on the cake. It needs to be repudiated, and all of the V2 "popes", some of whom whose Catholicism is questionable, and were outright heretics, before the Papacy itself is destroyed. Bergoglio is the natural, intended, gradualist progression of the "Conciliar Church". I was a BiPper until Ratzinger died. Then I read up on all these post Pius XII "popes" (I'm a convert, late to the party). Now I understand Sedevacantism, and it must be true, sadly.

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  10. https://open.spotify.com/episode/7GiMPSlwHDUnN2tHYVMEVX?si=_63edqEIQ9uetCjfsfY8AA&app_destination=copy-link

    Michael Davies has a 4 part talk on Spotify. This is a link to the first part.

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