[Taken from Real Catholicism, 6/7 Volume I]

The Canon of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church goes back to the time of the Apostles. By the year 600 or so it was firmly fixed — so much so that, when Pope St. Gregory the Great added a few words to the Hanc Igitur, the people of Rome were outraged. According to Canon Hesse, they threatened to kill the Pope — because he had dared to touch liturgy (The New Mass Mess audiotape).

In 1570 Pope St. Pius V codified the existing liturgy, in his Bull, Quo Primum. Purified of accretions, the Traditional Mass was established, in that Bull, as the Latin Rite Mass in perpetuity; it was not to be altered, nor was a new rite to be constructed. Pius did not promulgate a new Order of Mass; the Missale the Pope and the Tridentine Fathers endorsed was the one then in use in Rome — the one that formed, according to Michael Davies,1 "the basis for most of the Mass rites in use throughout Latin Christendom" (The Tridentine Mass, p.9). Faced with the Reformation's heresies, the Council of Trent had as its first priority the codification of Catholic Eucharistic teachings. Davies notes that "it seems reasonable to conclude that the Council Fathers intended the reformed Missal to be investigated with the same permanence as their doctrinal teaching, because the Missale would give liturgical expression to what they had defined by their dogmatic decrees" (The Tridentine Mass, p. 19).

Pius XII revised the rubrics for Holy Week. The next change to the canon of the Mass (that portion between the Sanctus and Communion) — came when John XXIII added the name of St. Joseph in 1962. At the time that those changes were made, they seemed relatively unimportant. They were, however, 'warm-up exercises' for the revolution to come.

In April of 1969, the Vatican published the New Order of the Mass — a Mass which represented a great departure from the one mandated by St. Pius V and the Council of Trent. "To tell the truth," said Joseph Gelineau, SJ, one of the experts involved in its formulation, "it is a different liturgy of the Mass. This needs to be said without ambiguity: the Roman Rite as we knew it no longer exists. It has been destroyed." (Cited in The Tridentine Mass, p. 39). Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, whom Davies calls the 'chief architect of the liturgical revolution,' has made similar comments. He boasted that the New mass is "a major conquest of the Catholic Church," referring to it as "a new song" to which other verses will be added later.

The altered nature of the Mass was not lost on some orthodox Catholics. The New mass found among its earliest and sternest critics Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci, whose Critical Study and letter to the Pope on the subject charged that the New Mass "teems with insinuations or manifest errors against the integrity of the Catholic Faith." Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani had served as head of the Holy Office under three Popes — and in that position was charged with protecting the purity of the Catholic faith. (In America, the Cardinals' letter and accompanying study are published together as The Ottaviani Intervention.)

The Cardinals' letter notes that "the Novus Ordo Missae... represents a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Holy Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent, which by fixing definitively the 'canons' of the rite, erected an insurmountable barrier against any heresy which might attack the integrity of the Mystery."

The Novus Ordo, according to its formulators, was intended only as a provisional rite. Rumors are now circulating regarding yet another New Mass — the Ordo Simplex, reportedly due to make its appearance next year.

The General Instruction

From the General Instruction:

Traditional Latin Mass (Council of Trent) The Mass is the true and special sacrifice of the New Law. In it Jesus Christ, by the ministry of the Priest offers His Body and Blood to God the Father under the appearances of bread and wine by a mystical immolation in an unbloody manner for a renewal and memorial of the Sacrifice of the Cross.

Novus Ordo Missae (Pope Paul VI) The Lord's supper, or Mass, is the assembly, or gathering together, of the people of God with the priest presiding to celebrate the memorial of the Lord. For this reason the promise of Christ is particularly true of the local congregation of the Church: "Where two are three are gathered in My Name, there I am in the midst of them."

 The General Instruction for the New Mass makes clear a theological shift. Commenting on one particularly riveting portion (see above), Fr. Wathen points out that "the New Mass is a memorial meal. This instruction does not say that the priest offers a sacrifice. He merely presides over the assembly. Christ's presence is not physical but spiritual, as when any group of 'Christians' gather. The French writer, Edith Delamare, comments: 'Here the [Protestant] Lord's Supper and the [Catholic] Mass are merged into one ... In the present ecumenical context, it is as if neither Luther nor the Council of Trent ever happened.'" (Who Shall Ascend, p. 534).2

So much criticism was received regarding this particular passage that it was somewhat modified — it now reads "with a priest presiding and acting in the person of Christ..." Although the sop was sufficient to quiet conservative concern, the essential errors and ambiguities remain.

The priest is still a 'presider;' the Novus Ordo steadfastly refuses to speak of the priest as a 'celebrant.' Dr. Rama Coomaraswamy quotes Fr. Martin Patino, a member of the Concilium who assisted in the preparation of the Novus Ordo: "The [new] mass is not an act of the priest with whom the people unite themselves, as it used to be explained. The Eucharist is, rather, an act of the people, whom the ministers serve by making the Savior present sacramentally .... This former formulation, which corresponds o the classical theology of recent centuries, was rejected because it placed what was relative and ministerial (the hierarchy) above what was ontological and absolute (the people of God)" (The Problems with the New Mass, p. 72)

The Mass is still referred to as the Lord's Supper. Cardinal Ottaviani's Critical Study noted that the Mass "is designated by a great many different expressions, all acceptable relatively, all unacceptable if employed as they are separately and in an absolute sense."

In the Traditional Roman Mass, the first part is the Offertory, which very clearly expresses the sacrificial, propitiatory character of the New Mass. The Novus Ordo effectively abolishes the Offertory; of the 12 Traditional Offertory prayers, only two were retained in the New Mass. The term 'Offertory' itself has vanished; there remains only something called "The Preparation of the Gifts," the instructions for which lay heavy emphasis on procession. The deleted prayers are the same ones removed by Luther and Cranmer. It was, as Davies points out, "the doctrine of the Mass as a sacrifice of propitiation which outraged the Protestant Reformers" (Pope Paul's New Mass, p. 320). "The abomination called the offertory," remarked Luther, "and from this point on almost everything stinks of oblation."

Fr. Wathen notes that "practically all the prayers of the Offertory ... were deemed useless ... The given reason ... is that all these prayers are recent insertions into the Mass; none of them were in the Mass before, say, 1100 or 1200 A.D." (The Great Sacrilege, p. 71). Citing as an example the deleted Suscipe, Sancte Pater both Fr. Wathen and Dr. Coomaraswamy demonstrate the incompatibility between the Catholic theology expressed in that prayer and the new religion of 'Catholic' modernists. The prayer itself reads:

Receive, O Holy Father, Almighty and Everlasting God, this spotless host, which I, Thine unworthy servant, offer unto Thee, my living and true God, for mine own countless sins, offenses, and negligences, and for all here present, as also for all faithful Christians, living and dead, that it may avail for my own and their salvation unto life everlasting.

"What a marvel of doctrinal exactitude!" exclaims Coomaraswamy. "Along with the actions of the priest, this prayer makes it clear that what is offered at the Mass is the 'spotless host' or victim. Second, the propitiatory (atoning) nature of the Mass is explicit — it is offered for our sins. Third, it reminds us that the Mass is offered 'for the living and the dead,' and fourth, that it is the priest who offers the Sacrifice as a mediator between man and God ... In the New Mass this prayer, needless to say, has been entirely deleted" (The Problems with the New Mass, p. 34). In addition to the acknowledgment of unworthiness and the clear sacrificial language, Fr. Wathen notes that he prayer "was said silently by the celebrant ... If there are two things we cannot abide in the 'new age,' it is silent prayers during the communal prayer service, and the priest's acting as if he were about to do something in virtue of his own priesthood, which the laity cannot participate in" (The Great Sacrilege, p. 72).

The prayer that has replaced the Suscipe, Sancte Pater is a modified Jewish table grace:

Blessed are you, Lord, God of all Creation, Trough your goodness we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made. It will become for us the bread of life.

The offering of Cain has been substituted for that of Abel; the new prayer makes no reference to the propitiation for sin. Patrick Henry Omlor notes that "where Catholics humbly beseech God's acceptance the prayer of the Jew audaciously says 'Here — we made it, You take it.' without humility. No contrite heart. No respect for the Divine. Rudely imposed upon the Catholic ear and mind is a 'prayer' of unbelievers in Christ, rejecting the Sacrifice, Redemption and Salvation wrought by Christ, the God-Man" (The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Knox Query, p. 18).

Davies notes that the new prayer is "fully compatible with the Teilhardian theory that human effort, the work of human hands, becomes in a certain way the matter of the Sacrament. Thus we have a rite that is not simply compatible with Protestantism but with the Cult of Man" (Pope Paul's New Mass, p. 322). Davies also finds that the prayer "would certainly fit in with the ethos of a Masonic hall" (p. 320). He sees in the "We offer" another example of the systematic blurring in the Novus Ordo, of the distinction between priest and laity; it is now possible to interpret it as a service concelebrated by the entire congregation.

The Ottaviani Intervention charges that the prayer in question "alters the nature of the sacrificial offering by turning it into a type of exchange of gifts between God and man. Man brings the bread, and God turns it into 'the spiritual drink.' ... The expressions 'bread of life' and 'spiritual drink,' of course, are utterly vague and could mean anything. Once again we come up against the same basic equivocation: According to the new definition of the Mass [in the General Instruction], Christ is only spiritually present among His own; here bread and wine are only spiritually — and not substantially — changed" (pp. 37-38).

The new "Invitation to Prayer" deserves mention. In the Traditional Mass, the Priest asks "Prayer, Brethren, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable...." This has been changed to "our sacrifice" in the New Mass. While it may at first reading sound equivalent, it is not. The Catholic Church teaches that it is the priest who offers the sacrifice to God; the laity offers penance, prayers, personal sacrifices, true, but only the priest, acting in the person of Christ, offers the Body and Blood. Pius XII remarked in Mediator Dei that "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... is performed by the priest and by him alone, as the representative of Christ and not as the representative of the faithful." For Protestants, of course, the presider is the one chosen to represent the people, rather than Christ. Pius XII's 'dangerous error' is codified in the Novus Ordo. Hearing the words of the New Mass 'Invitation to Prayer' often enough will probably make of the congregation de facto Lutherans.

Dr. Coomaraswamy notes that Eucharistic Prayer I "is merely modeled on the traditional Canon, but contains several significant differences ...[W]ith the destruction of the traditional Offertory, with its prayers that state precisely what occurs during the Canon, and with the modern mistranslations, Eucharistic Prayer Number One is totally capable of being given an entirely Modernist and Protestant interpretation" (The Problems with the New Mass, p. 37).

That Eucharistic Prayer, for example, asks that the offering "may become for us the Body and Blood..." Coomaraswamy notes that such a phrase is understandable in the Cranmerian/Protestant sense, which denies that the bread and wine are transubstantiated themselves. As Davies explains, "the addition of 'for us' does facilitate an interpretation in line with the theory of transignification, where the Presence of Christ in the Sacrament is really only for the believer and not in the order of objective reality. Transignification is a doctrine fully in line with that of the Protestant Reformers" (The Roman Rite Destroyed, p. 37).

Davies maintains that, although the so-called 'Roman Canon' is not obligatory on a single day throughout the year, its inclusion "enabled the majority of orthodox priests to accept the New Mass without doing too much violence to their consciences" (The New Mass, p. 15). Most of the priests who would have been expected to protest were molified by the first Eucharistic Prayer — a pattern, once again, that Davies find parallel to the staged technique of Cranmer's liturgical revolution.

Davies states that Eucharistic Prayer II, "[designated] the Canon of Hippolytus, was written by a third-century anti-pope with views of dubious orthodoxy ... It never formed a part of the official liturgy of the Church, its original version has been lost, and the text we have has certainly been modified" (Pope Paul's New Mass, p. 347). Dr. Coomaraswamy points out that it "is said to have been taken from Hippolytus' Apostolic Tradition ... However, to this already questionable document, the innovators have made significant changes" (The Problems with the New Mass, page. 39). Edward T. Snyder's web article, 'Distorting Hippolytus,' compares the Hippolytus document and the Eucharistic Prayer line by line. Snyder notes omissions, in Eucharistic Prayer II, of phrases that serve to describe Our Lord's diving role and to link Him with the Mass, or to point up the role of the priest (Lex orandi, lex credendi web page). Reformers suppressed a specific reference to Hell and the chains of Satan — and they added 'for us,' making, according to Coomaraswamy, their heretical intent more than clear. "All pretense of a Catholic interpretation is eliminated .... There is absolutely no preparation (build-up or development) in Eucharistic Prayer 2 for the 'Consecration' of the species ... Sneeze and you will miss it" (Problems, p. 40).

Davies notes that he word hostia, victim, appears nowhere in Eucharistic Prayer II. "The chief value of the Canon of Hippolytus from the ecumenical standpoint is that its sacrificial phraseology is minimal — it was composed at a stage in the third century when there was still a long way to go before matter which was implicit in the Mass was made explicit in its prayers. Bringing this prayer into the Mass in the twentieth century is precisely the type of liturgical archaelolgism condemned as pernicious by Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Mediator Dei" (The New Mass, p. 21)

According to Davies, "the Liturgical Establishment makes no secret of the fact that the new Eucharistic Prayers are modeled on the Jewish berakah, a prayer of praise and thanksgiving. This is a point which they repeat ad nauseam in their books, articles and lectures ... The fallacy here is that although Our Lord may have used the berakah format at the last Supper this no more makes the Eucharistic Prayer a berakah than it makes the Mass a Passover meal. The Last Supper was a propitiatory sacrifice he would offer on the Cross the next day" (Pope Paul's New Mass, pp. 333-334). Davies quotes Fr. J. D. Crichton, whom he describes as England's arch-liturgist; Fr. Crichton finds great merit in Eucharistic Prayer II, because of its clear berakah pattern.

Coomaraswamy maintains that the Novus Ordo's creators exhibit a clear preference for Eucharistic Prayer II. "The official documents from Rome instruct us that Eucharistic Prayer 2 can be used on any occasion. It is recommended for sundays 'unless for pastoral reasons another Eucharistic Prayer is chosen.' It is also particularly suitable "for weekday masses, or for the mass in particular circumstances'... It is recommended for 'masses with children, young people and small groups,' and above all for Catechism classes..." (Problems, p. 41).

The Church has always taught that, for the Sacrament to be valid, there must be 1) a properly ordained priest, 2) who intends to do at the altar what the Church intends, 3) using the proper matter (bread and wine), and 4) using the proper form (words). Coomaraswamy notes that "the form of hte Consecration in the Traditional Mass has been fixed since Apostolic times. It has been 'canonically' fixed since the so-called Armenian Decree of the Council of Florence (1438-1445)" (The Problems with the New mass, p. 47). That form, according to the Council of Trent, is:

FOR THIS IS MY BODY.

***

FOR THIS IS THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD

OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL TESTAMENT

THE MYSTERY OF FAITH:

WHICH SHALL BE SHED FOR YOU AND FOR MANY

UNTO THE REMISSION OF SINS.

* Changes in the Consecration: "pro multis"

Although the official Latin text of the Novus Ordo Missae retains the words "pro multis," "for many," in the words of Consecration, that is a version of the Mass which Americans will rarely if ever experience. When the Novus Ordo was translated into the vernacular, those words were rendered: "for all men"; then "for all." An identical 'error' occurs in a number of languages — Italian, French, German, Spanish, Croation — suggesting that there was a decision made within the Congregation for Divine Worship in this regard.

The innovation was defended in an unsigned article in Notitiae, the Congregation's official journal. Readers were told that, in Aramaic (presumed to be Our Lord's language), the expression "for many" means "for all." Such is not the case, however; Davies points out that both Aramaic and Hebrew have different words to express both concepts. Patrick Henry Omlor gives kol or kolla as the Aramaic word for 'all'; 'saggi'an is the Aramaic word for 'many.' "Three months later Notitiae published a signed article admitting this" (Pope Paul's New Mass, p. 623). There has, of course, been no correction made.

Omlor points out that it is "an unquestionable fact that throughout 19 centuries and right up to the very present (i.e., before the vernacular craze became epidemic) not a single rite of the Catholic Church, not the schismatic Easter Orthodox Churches, not a single heretical Church, even, ever used the words 'for all men' in this place. Eight Eastern Rites there are in communion with the Holy See, and, as the first part of this century at least, there were eleven different languages used by these eight rites. Now in all these rites and all these languages, and also, of course, in the Latin of the Roman Rite, the formula reads 'for many'" (Insights into Heresy, p. 15)

Omlor argues convincingly that the change in ICEL's form involves basic change in theological meaning. There is a blurring, he maintains, of the distinction between the sufficiency and the efficacy of Christ's death. "[T]here are some men who, through their perverse failure to cooperate with God's grace, thereby nullify for themselves the benefits of this Purchase.... Christ's death was sufficient for all, but it is effective... only for those who avail themselves of the necessary graces God gives hem for salvation" (The Ecumenist Heresy, p. 4). As the Council of Trent explained, "Though He died for all, yet not all receive the benefit of His death, but only those unto whom the merit of His Passion is communicated" (Session VI, Chapter 3). Omlor cites the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, the authors of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, St. Alphonsus, Pope Innocent III, Pope Benedict XIV and others, all of whom expounded upon the vital distinction between sufficiency and efficacy.

Joachim Jeremias, a German Protestant, was the first in modern times to suggest the change to "for all." According to Hugh Ross Williamson, Jeremias, "at the time a professor at the University of Gottingen... attacked the Divinity of Christ" (The Great Betrayal, cited by Omlor). Jeremias first advanced the theory that 'for many" meant "for all" in his 1966 book, The Words of Jesus.

According to Fr. Wathen, "the reason for mistranslating the words "pro multis" to mean "for all men" was to implant the Lutheran error (held by almost all Protestants) that through the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, all will be saved who have faith in that Sacrifice, regardless of their own moral goodness, regardless of their acceptance of other revealed truths, regardless of membership in the Chruch. But this idea is only an intermediary one, meant to suggest a still more heterodox idea, that eventually all men will be saved — taken to Heaven — even the damned" (Great Sacrilege, p. 86).

Three points need to be made regarding this change of wording.

1) The liturgical reformers have changed the words of Our Lord, and, with the new wording, altered His meaning. In Matthew 26:28 and Mark 14:24, Jesus Christ said "for many." With incredible arrogance, the reformers have evidently decided that He should have said, "for all."

2) The reformers lacked the authority to make the change. Leo XIII's Bull Apostolicae Curae says that "the Church is forbidden to change, or even to touch, the matter or form of any Sacrament." The Church has no power over the substance of Sacraments, according to Pope Pius XII, since those Sacraments were instituted by Jesus Christ (Sacramentum Ordinis, 1947). He was echoing the words of Pope St. Pius X, who said "it is well known that to the Church there belongs no right whatsoever to innovate anything touching on the substance of the Sacraments" (Ex quo, nono, 1910)

3) De Defectibus established that, if anything in the established form was omitted, the Mass would be invalid. De Defectibus is a bull of Pope St. Pius V, covering defects in the Mass. Printed in the front of every Traditional Roman altar Missal, it explicitly states that "If anyone removes or changes anything in the Form of the Consecration of the Body and Blood, and by this change of words does not signify the same thing as these words do, he does not confect the Sacrament." For the Mass to be valid, the entire, intact form [as cited on page 4] must be recited.

"In our Sacraments," teaches the Catechism of the Council of Trent, "the form is so definite that any, even a casual deviation from it renders the Sacrament null" (Part II, Ch. 1, cited by Omlor).

*Changes in the Consecration: "The Mystery of Faith"

The Consecration of the Chalice has been butchered. Not only have the words "for many" been changed to "for all," but the phrase "the Mystery of Faith" has been excised from the form, and inserted later in the Mass.

Dr. Coomaraswamy's comments on this change bear quoting in toto: "[T]he phrase has been removed from the form and made into the introduction to the peoples 'Memorial Acclamation,' thus implying that the Mystery of Faith is the Death, Resurrection and Final Coming of Our Lord, rather than His 'Real Presence' on the altar. Nor are the other Memorial Acclamations any more specific, e.g., 'when we eat this bread and drink this cup we proclaim Your death, Lord Jesus, until You come in glory."

"Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, the principal architect of the new Mass, informs us in his memoirs that he discussed this issue directly with Paul VI. The Concilium had wished to leave the text of the 'Memorial Acclamation' up to the various National Bishops' Committees on the liturgy, but Paul VI urged that 'a series of acclamations... be prepared for use after the consecration.' According to Archbishop Bugnini, Paul VI feared that 'if the initiative were left to the Bishops' Committees, inappropriate acclamations such as My Lord and my God would be introduced.' The Catholic Church traditionally has always encouraged the private and quiet use of the ejaculatory prayer My Lord and my God, by the people at the elevation of the Host during Mass and Benediction; Pope St. Pius X attached rich indulgences to this practice, as it both affirmed belief in the Real Presence and gave praise to God" (The Problems with the New Mass, p. 57)

The words 'the Mystery of Faith' are not found in the Holy Scripture; St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that they were handed down to the Church by the Apostles who received them from Our Lord (Summa, III, Q. 78, A. 3-9). Certainly this is the position of Pope Innocent III, in Cum Carthae Circa — which, by virtue of its inclusion in Denzinger, Omlor views as part of the ordinary Magisterium. Omlor stresses, therefore, that those words are "derived from Tradition (Tradition with a capital 'T', which is one of the two sources of Divine Revelation)..." (No Mystery of Faith: No Mass, p. 12). To charges that 'the mystery of Faith' does not appear in the wine consecration form of the Eastern rites, Omlor responds with a quote from the Catholic Encyclopedia: "It is abundantly clear that this diversity [of rites] arose from the traditions handed down by the different Apostles." "Through God's Infinite Wisdom... and foreknowledge of all things, it has turned out," he notes, "that only in the Western Church has the doctrine of the Real Presence been assailed" (No Mystery of Faith: No Mass, p. 19). In other words, those words signifying Christ's Real Presence exist in the Latin Rite because God knew Latin Rite Catholics would need them.

The phrase 'The Mystery of Faith' was removed by Luther and Cranmer as well, since both understood that it referred to transubstantiation. Omlor quite clearly argues that, by removing 'the Mystery of Faith' from the form of the Sacrament, the Novus Ordo revisionists have done precisely what De Defectibus cautioned against, and no Mass is therefore celebrated.

The change was not without precedent. The phrase was omitted from the wine consecration form when Pope Pius XII's New Order of Holy Week was translated into the vernacular. The Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office issued a Monitum (warning), calling the omission 'nefarious.'

The 'Short Form' Controversy. Omlor explains that "Defenders of the 'short form' position hold that these first few words of the wine-Consecration form in the Latin Rite, 'This is the Chalice of My Blood,' suffice for the valid consecration of the precious Blood. They claim that the remaining words of the sacramental form, namely, 'of the new and eternal testament, the mystery of faith, which shall be shed for you and for many unto the remission of sins, although being part of the wine-consecration form laid down in the Roman Missal, are nevertheless not necessary for the valid consecration of the wine and hence not necessary for the validity of the Mass.

"The defenders of the 'entire form' position deny the foregoing supposition. They hold that, except for the word 'for,' ALL the words of the sacramental form for the wine-consecration, exactly as laid down in the Roman Missal are absolutely necessary for bringing about the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist and therefore are essential for the celebration of a valid Mass" (Why the Short Form Cannot Possibly Suffice, p. 1). Omlor proceeds to demonstrate that the 'short form' position is a minority one; "very many great theologians, including saints, popes and doctors of the Church, have held that the [short form is] insufficient for the validity of the Consecration.... These exponents include St. Thomas Aquinas; St. Antonius; Pope ST. Pius V; Pope Innocent III; the authors of the Catechism of the Council of Trent...." and many others. Cajetan (1469-1534), a Dominican cardinal, was, according to Omlor, the first 'Thomist' to oppose the mind of St. Thomas — and Pope Pius V had Cajetan's opinion on this matter deleted from the authorized Roman edition of the Cardinal's Commentaries.

The crux of Omlor's argument is that, according to Pope Leo XIII's Bull Apostolicae Curae (1896), "All know that the Sacraments of the New Law, as sensible and efficient signs of invisible grace, must both signify THE GRACE which they effect, and effect THE GRACE which they signify... The form consequently cannot be apt or sufficient for a Sacrament which omits what it must essentially signify." The short form fails to signify in the necessary, unambiguous manner the remission of the sins of Christ's Mystical Body.

It is indisputable that the mere existence of the two opposing opinions makes the validity of the wine consecration form of the New Mass doubtful. According to Fr. Heribert Jone, a well-known Catholic moral theologian, "Matter and form must be certainly valid. Hence, one may not follow a probable opinion and use either doubtful matter or form. Acting otherwise, one commits a sacrilege" (Handbook of Moral Theology, p. 308).

The Communion Rite

In the Traditional Mass, the priest says, while distributing Communion, "May the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ preserve your soul unto life everlasting, Amen." In the Novus Ordo, whoever distributes Communion merely says, "The Body of Christ" — without specifying whether the phrase applies to the host, or the recipient. (It's a change typical of the studied ambiguity throughout the Novus Ordo.)

Davies notes that "the American hierarchy is actually preparing the way for Catholic acceptance of the concept that the Sacrifice in the Mass is that of Christ being offered in virtue of His presence in the congregation who offer themselves. In the official [Sept. 1976] Newsletter of the Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy, a ruling was laid down when distributing Holy Communion a priest must not say: 'Receive the Body of Christ' or 'This is the Body of Christ.' The reason given is that the congregation itself is the Body of Christ" (The Roman Rite Destroyed, p. 39). According to that Newsletter, "the use of the phrase The Body of Christ: Amen, in the communion rite asserts in a very forceful way the presence and role of the community... The change to the use of the phrase ... rather than the long formula which was previously said by the Priest has several repercussions in the liturgical renewal. First, it seeks to highlight the important concept, of the community as the Body of Christ; secondly it brings into focus the assent of the individual in the worshiping community...." The assent of the worshiping community, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with the objective reality of transubstantiation, which can be effected in its absence; it is only in the heretical Lutheran transignification that the belief of the recipient impacts on the reality of the Sacrament.

The Revised Propers

The propers of the Mass are the variable Sunday and Feast day prayers. Fr. Anthony Cekada attempted a line-by-line comparison of the old and new Propers, in The Problems with the Prayers of the Modern Mass (hereinafter, PPMM). He found he task arduous, since many of the old orations have been moved or altogether deleted, and the liturgical calendar itself has been drastically modified. Epiphanytide, Septuagesima and the Ember Days were deleted, the number of Saints remembered in the calendar was dramatically reduced, and feasts have been relocated or suppressed.

The Traditional Missal, according to Fr. Cekada, contains 182 orations. "About 760 of those were dropped entirely. Of the approximately 36% which remained, the revisers altered over half of them.... Thus, only some 17% of the orations from the old Missal made it untouched into the new Missal" (PPMM, p. 9). Fr. Cekada's conclusion is that "the contents of Paul VI's Missal represent a radical break with the Church's liturgical tradition."

*The Agenda of the Reformers

fr. Cekada quotes Fr. Carlo Braga, assistant to Fr. Bugnini (the latter, Secretary for the Concilium charged with liturgical reform). Fr. Braga's words should sound warning bells in the ears of those who can recall the textbook definition of heresy.

"Revising the pre-existing text becomes more delicate when faced with a need to update content or language, and when all this affects not only form, but also doctrinal reality. This [revision] is called for in light of the new view of human values... The Council clearly proposes this [new view] and it was kept in mind when the Temporal Cycle was revised... In other cases, Ecumenical requirements dictated appropriate revisions in language. Expressions calling positions or struggles of the past are no longer in harmony with the Church's new positions. An entirely new foundation of Eucharistic theology has superceded devotional points of view or a particular way of venerating and invoking the Saints. Retouching the text, moreover, was deemed necessary to bring to light new values and new perspectives." (Fr. Carlo Braga, 'Il Proprium de Sactis', Ephemerides Liturgicae 84, 1970, p. 419).

*Doctrines deleted or downplayed

Fr. Cekada found that the above-mentioned 'new values' required the downplaying or obliteration in the new Propers of a long list of Catholic 'doctrinal realities.'"These include hell, judgment, God's wrath, punishment for sin, the wickedness of sin as the greatest evil, detachment from the world, purgatory, the souls of the departed, Christ's kingship on earth, the Church Militant, the triumph of the Catholic Faith, the evils of heresy, schism and error, the conversion of non-Catholics, the merits of the Saints, and miracles...." (PPMM, p. 28). Some of the 'adjustments' were made by way of mistranslations. There are, according to Christopher Monckton, former editor of the (London) Universe, over 400 mistranslations in the English version of the New Mass — errors paralleled in other vernacular translations except the Polish. Both he and Davies maintain that the inaccurate renderings serve to dilute or remove allusions and references to those doctrines of the Mass that are specifically Catholic. Monckton finds that "The thoroughness and determination with which those teachings.... have been removed is demonstrated by many minor omissions which are often repeated" (quoted in Pope Paul's New Mass, pp. 617-618).

Consideration was given to abolishing Ash Wednesday; in the end, two of the four orations were eliminated, and the other two 'doctored.' One, which formerly asked for the spirit of compunction for sin, now contains only what Fr. Cekada terms "incongruous talk about celebrating the paschal mystery." The other was stripped of the words "pardon," "humility," the "fragility of the human condition," and the concept of death as a penalty for our guilt. The Holy Thursday prayer that mentioned that Judas Iscariot was punished by God for his guilt has been removed.

Detachment from the world is no longer a concern; orations that spoke of putting aside earthly pleasures have been deleted.

Rites and Prayers for the Dead have undergone extreme reconstruction. "White vestments replaced black; Alleluia replaced Eternal Rest Grant unto Them, and the typical funeral, in America at least, was turned into something akin to a canonization ceremony ... Hell, for contemporary man, is not on his list of fundamental options" (PPMM, p. 20). The word 'soul' has been excised almost entirely from the new Missal. In the New Mass for All Souls' Day ti does not appear once. Revisers dropped 11 of the traditional prayers from the dead which used the word 'soul' and struck the word itself from 23 of the 25 orations they retained.

Ecumenism. "The notion of acknowledging the one, true God has been deleted from the Collect for St. Cyril of Jerusalem. The Collect for the Propagation of the Faith,... now the Collect fro the Evangelization of Peoples, underwent similar revisions... The goal of the missionary's apostolate has been changed; in the old collect it was to bring nations to know the only true God and Jesus Christ — the phrase is a quote from Our Lord's discourse in John 17; in the new collect, it appears to be merely 'preaching the Gospel.' The means have been turned into an end" (PPMM, pp. 22-23). Mention of the Church Militant has been struck from the Feasts of Christ the King and St. Ignatius Loyola.

Allusions to the existence of heresy have been deleted; the Oration for Heretics and Schismatics has been abolished. The Church apparently no longer has enemies; mention of them has been struck from the ST. Pius V oration. We no longer pray for the conversion of the Jews or Pagans. We now ask that the Jews increase in faithfulness to their Covenant, and "come to the fullness of redemption." Gone is the mention of Jewish faithlessness and blindness.

Fr. Cekada notes that "the merits of the saints followed the soul into virtual oblivion" (PPMM, p. 25). Traditional prayers which invoked the "merits and intercession" of the saints now ask only for their prayers. The miracles of the saints fare no better; all have been suppressed, as Fr. Braga explained, to adapt to "the mentality of modern man." Those miracles were, after all, "characteristic of a certain hagiography of the past."

Fr. Cekada further noted in a 1986 speech that "the greatest outrage that the translators perpetrated was consistently leaving out the word 'grace' from their translations. It appears in the Latin original of the Orations 11 times, but not once in the official English version. Thus, the word which is fundamental to Catholic teaching on the Fall of man, the Redemption, sin, justification, and the entire sacramental system has utterly disappeared without a trace..." (Cited in The Problems with the New Mass, p. 80)

****

*Annibale Bugnini and the Concilium

According to Mary Ball Martinez, "as early as 1947 Pope Pacelli... was setting up a commision for the complete overhauling of the sacred liturgy. As secretary he chose a 35-year-old priest, one Fr. Bugnini, who had the evocative first name of Annibale, having been born in a town along the shores of Lake Trasimeno where Hannibal and his elephants roundly defeated the Romans. Beating the Romanness out of the Missale... became the major goal of Fr. Bugnini and his group of periti.

"That the Pope gave great importance to this committee and its work is evident in lines from an autobiography which Bugnini wrote... 'We enjoyed the full confidence of Pius XII who was kept informed of our work by Msgr. Montini and even more by Fr. Bea, his confessor. Thanks to these intermediaries we could arrive at remarkable results even in periods when the Pope's illness prevented anyone else from seeing him'" (The Undermining of the Catholic Church, p. 90).

Martinez maintains that the Curial office, the Sacred Congregation for Rites, opposed Bugnini's innovations consistently, and it therefore took 6 years for the changes Maxima Redeptionis came finally in 1955, moving Easter's celebration to the evening before, and suppressing the Three Hours devotion on Good Friday and the solemnities of Tenebrae. In many of the Easter ceremonies, Martinez notes that the priest faced the people, and the prayers at the foot of the altar and the last Gospel were suppressed, "making of it a kind of dress rehearsal for the New Mass, still a decade in the future" (p. 91).

Fr. Bugnini was appointed Professor of Sacred Liturgy at the Lateran University in 1957. In 1960 he was appointed Secretary to the Preparatory Commission for the Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council. Michael Davies maintains that "he was the moving spirit behind the drafting of the preparatory schema, the draft document which was to be placed before the Council Fathers for discussion... As was stressed in Msgr. Bugnini's own journal, Notitiae, the Liturgy Constitution which the Council Fathers eventually passed was substantially identical with the draft schema which he had steered through the Preparatory Commission" (Pope Paul's New Mass, p. 498).

The Concilium...

In March, 1964 the formation of the Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution on the Liturgy known as the Concilium, was announced; fr. Bugnini was appointed its secretary. Although over 50 prelates from around the world were members, it was Bugnini who wielded the power, guiding daily the work of some 150 consulting liturgists who were producing the new texts and rubrics.

Fr. Cekada explains that "Concilium's mission and juridical standing were an anomaly. In the normal scheme of the things, the Vatican's Sacred Congregation of Rites decided and regulated all matters affecting the Church's worship. It appears, however, that the members of the Congregation were opposed to many of the schemes in the air for reworking the Sacred Liturgy... Establishing a new entity to propose liturgical changes, therefore, achieved the proverbial end-run around a well-entrenched opposition" (PPMM, p. 7).

In 1969, Pope Paul incorporated the Concilium into the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship as a special commission. As Davies explains, "Notitae, the official journal of the Concilium, became the journal of the new Congregation. Father Annibale Bugnini was appointed secretary... and became more powerful than ever. In fact, it is certainly no exaggeration to claim that what had, in fact, happened was that the Concilium, in other words Father Bugnini, had taken over the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship" (Pope Paul's New Mass, p. 502). Dubbed the "evil spirit of liturgical reform" by Dietrich von Hildebrand, Bugnini had over 150 changes in circulation within twelve months.

Freemasonic Connections

In 1972 Pope Paul created Bugnini Titular Archbishop of Dioclentia. In 1975, however, the Archbishop left his briefcase behind in a conference room, where it was found and inspected by the Dominican Friar charged with restoring the room to order. In search only of the identity of the case's owner, the Dominican found, according to Piers Compton, documents whose "signatures and place of origin showed that they came from dignitaries of secret societies in Rome" (The Broken Cross, p. 61). The letters were addressed to "Brother Bugnini." According to Davies "a Roman priest of the very highest reputation.. Had this information placed into the hands of Paul VI, with the warning that if action were not taken at once he would be bound in conscience to make the matter public. Msgr. Bugnini was then dismissed and his entire congregation dissolved" (Pope Paul's New Mass, p. 505).

Bugnini was appointed the Apostolic pro-Nuncio to Iran, and repeatedly denied that he had Freemasonic affiliations. When the Italian Register came to light in 1976, however, it showed his April 23, 1963 initiation date and number, and gave his code name as 'Buan.'

The Luciferian nature of secret societies

This Masonic belief in the immanent divinity of man represents a revolt against the divine life; the 1931 French Masonic Review specifically stated that "henceforward there are only two doctrines... for which men are combating; Integral Humanism, no matter what may be the particular form of social reconstruction favored by its protagonists... and Clerico-Theism" (cited in Fr. Fahey's Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, p. 38).

The ecumenical goal of secret societies.

Fr. James Wathen has pointed out that "only the extremely naive would not recognize in the Ecumenical Movement the machinations of Freemasonry, which from the Nineteenth century has had as one of its principle goals the amalgamation of the churches, and the deletion from all of them the last traces of authentic Christianity" (Who Shall Ascend, p. 487). "Our final aim is that of Voltaire and that of the French Revolution — the complete annihilation of Catholicism, and ultimately of Christianity," wrote a conspirator within the Carbonari, whose Supreme Direcotry, the Alta Vendita, became a "kind of nucleus for all the secret societies spread throughout Italy" (The Broken Cross, p. 12). Masonry's Integral Humanism will issue in the creation of an artificial world-state built according to their principles. Brother Riandey taught that "the future world will create a still newer one. After having assimilated Christianity and all other forms of spirituality, it will, as it were, give birth, by analogy to the physical phenomenon of a total collectivization, to a kind of pantheism" (Le Temple, Sept.-Oct. 1946).

Roca, a defrocked priest, Satanist, and Masonic theoretician, had been quite explicit in his statements regarding this syncretic goal. He envisioned "a new Christianity, sublime, vast, profound, truly universal, absolutely encyclopedic... a universal cult into which all cults will be absorbed whose God will be humanity, which to my eyes, commingles with Christ, who is thus the entire universe" (Glorieux Centenaire, pp. 77, 525, 528). "It is only a theocratic society having the characteristics of Freemasonry that we can hope some day to unite Islam and Christianity, the Jews with the Buddhists, Europe and Asia in one idea and one intense hope. In a word, it is up to Freemasonry to form the Universal Church." In the Bulletin du Grand Orient (n. 57), he summarizes: "Masonry wishes to be the super-church, the church which will reunite all churches."

It was primarily this intention that brought ringing condemnations from Pope after Pope; since the time of Clement XII, some 18 encyclicals condemned Freemasonry and threatened Catholics who joined or cooperated with them with excommunication. Masonry needs a universal religion of its liking, in order to blend together all humanity under Lucifer's utopian banner. The Church had been its most powerful enemy; after all, there has been enmity between her seed and that of the serpent since the time of Eden.

The method of secret societies

Subversion from within has become Masonry's chosen approach to the Catholic Church. The method proved quite successful; a century ago the secret societies were able to boast of "more than eight hundred priests, among whom are many professors and prelates as well as some Bishops and Cardinals" in Rome. In 1903, Freemason and Cardinal Mariano Rampolla, having served as Leo XIII's secretary of state, was nearly elevated to the chair of Peter.

By 1976 Italian publications were printing lists of clerics, some in high office, whose secret society membership had been uncovered. Numbered among them were the recently deceased Agostino Cardinal Casaroli, Secretary of State and prefect of the Pontifical Commission for the Revision of Canon law — the most powerful Vatican official after the Pope, whose place he assumes in the latter's absence.

Once clerics sympathetic to the revolution were in place, the Church could be torpedoed from within. Roca had spelled out the conditions for the successful subversion of Catholicism: "You must have a new dogma, a new religion, a new ministry, and new rituals that very closely resemble those of the surrendered Church." He also predicted that "The divine cult directed by the liturgy, ceremonial, ritual and regulation of the Roman Catholic Church will shortly undergo transformation at an ecumenical Council" (cited in The Broken Cross, p. 42).

The success of secret societies

certainly one encounters, among the documents of the Second Vatican Council, statements without Catholic precedent, which mark a departure from formal doctrine. Gaudium et Spes, n. 12, tells us that "Believers and unbelievers agree almost unanimously that all things on earth should be ordained to man as to their center and summit." It's a statement with which any Freemason would agree — but the Church has always taught that human life is ordered to God.

The predicted Masonic transformation is nowhere more evident than in the Novus Ordo Missae. Under Bugnini's leadership, references to man's frailty and propensity for sin have been excised, as befits candidates for godhood. By Bugnini's own admission 'ecumenical sensitivity' fueled the construction of new Eucharistic prayers, and references to those Catholic teachings despised by Protestants have been omitted or downplayed. The next world receives scant attention in a mass designed by those who look forward to ruling a universal temporal kingdom.

According to Michael Davies, a published photograph of Pope Paul VI with Vatican II's six Protestant liturgical 'observers'"proved to be a source of astonishment and even scandal to large numbers of the faithful who had had no idea that Protestants played any part in the compilation of the new Catholic rites" (Pope Paul's New Mass, Appendix III). Those heretics represented the World Council of Churches, the Anglican and Lutheran communions, and the Taize community. Davies goes on to quote Cardinal Baum, who maintains that the Protestants in question were "not simply there as observers, but as consultants as well and they participated fully in the discussions on Catholic liturgical renewal."

Their impact was considerable. "Prayers referring to the doctrines of sacrifice and the Real Presence have been minimized to such an extent that the Novus Ordo Missae can now be celebrated in a manner that is completely acceptable to some Protestants" (Pope Paul's New Mass, p. 255). M. G. Siegvalt, a professor of dogmatic theology on the Protestant faculty at Strasbourg, notes that "nothing in the renewed Mass need really trouble the Evangelical Protestant," the Eucharistic prayers having dropped what observer jean Guitton termed "the false perspective of sacrifice offered to God." Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani's intervention also cited the reduction of the priest's role to one approximating that of a Protestant minister, a new definition of the Mass as an "assembly," and ambiguous and equivocal language throughout, which compromise Church doctrines.

Davies maintains that "Not only do these Protestants feel at home with the prayers of the Novus Ordo Missae, but they state quite explicitly that they consider that there has been a change in the Catholic theology of the Mass which brings it into line with evangelical teaching on the Lord's Supper" (p. 271). (By way of example, the language of the prayer that asks that the gifts "be for us" the Body and Blood allows for the denial of Transubstantiation — and the substitution of transignifaction, a Protestant notion that holds that the Presence of Christ in the Sacrament is real only for the believer.)

Davies notes a liturgical convergence in the revised liturgies of Anglicans, Methodists and others, quoting writers from the various denominations who expressed their desire for what one called "a United Christian rite in a United Christian Church." He cites the efforts of the Societas Liturgica, under the auspices of the World Council of Churches, whose Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox members strive for just that sort of convergence. Similarly, the ICET (International Consultation on English Texts) proposes texts "which will be acceptable to all the Churches... in the hope of furthering ecumenism." The American bishops have made many ICET texts mandatory.

Fr. Wathen observes that "Protestants need take no comfort at seeing the Mass being 'accommodated' to their beliefs... the final purpose of the Revolution is their subversion, also... For its essential motif is not Protestant, but ecumenical... What [the Revolution] understands by ecumenism is the melting of all religious denominations into the pseudo-religious hash of universal brotherhood.... Instead of God, the Revolution worships 'man.'" (The Great Sacrilege, p. 127)

The Novus Ordo Missae, quite simply, is the new rite of 'Mass' meticulously constructed under the direction of a Freemason, with the official assistance of six forma heretics. It is the oft-stated intention of Freemasonic theoreticians to subvert and destroy the Catholic Church; heretics are termed such precisely because they deny Catholic teaching. There remains no logical reason to believe that it was not designed to harm the faith.

What is the force of Quo Primum?

Fr. Wathen explains that "Quo Primum established the Traditional Rite in perpetuity with all the force which the Pope's office possessed" (Ascend, pp. 528-529). An act of the Council of Trent as well as a Sainted Pope, Quo Primum says that "by virtue of our Apostolic Authority we give and grant in perpetuity that for the singing or reading of the Mass in any church whatsoever this Missal may be followed absolutely, without any scruple or conscience or fear of incurring any penalty, judgement or censure, and may be freely and lawfully used." It was declared "unlawful henceforth and forever throughout the Christian world to sing or to read Masses according to any other formula other than that of this Missal, published by us," with the exception of an Indult granted to approved mass rites that had been in use for over 200 years at that time. Furthermore, Quo Primum specifically states that "no one whosoever is permitted to infringe or rashly contravene this notice of Our permission, statute, ordinance, command..."

"You can find canonists who will tell you that Pope Paul VI, having authority equal to that of Pope St. Pius V, could legally abrogate Quo Primum, and legally introduce a new missal," Fr. Wathen observes. Michael Davies has found several who say precisely this. Certainly in purely disciplinary measures, the principle is a true one. However, Fr. Wathen's argument is that Quo Primum "is a law that was imposed with the fullest pontifical authority, whose intention was to protect the Mass insofar as it might ever need protecting, from any mischief whatsoever... It should be taken as a self-evident fact that the Church, as a perfect society — one, that is, which possesses all the means necessary for the achievement of the ends of its existence — has all the power and authority she needs to protect the Mass of the Roman Rite, and that, in the legislation, Quo Primum, she attempted to raise such an incontestable bulwark" (Ascend, pp. 530-531).

Is Papal infallibility involved?

According to Fr. Wathen, "the prevalent opinion is that, by his Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum of April 3, 1969, His Holiness Pope Paul VI established the Novus Ordo Missae to replace the Traditional Latin Mass... Consequently, to refuse to offer this 'New Mass' is a serious violation of Church law. And to question it on doctrinal grounds is tantamount to questioning the doctrine of Papal Infallibility" (Great Sacrilege, pp. 16-17). There are those, he notes, "who say that the Holy Ghost would never permit the supreme authority of the Church to impose as a universally binding law something which is contrary or harmful to faith or morals... Any law, they imagine, that the Church passes which has to do with their moral obligations cannot be harmful to them, else the Church will have violated her infallibility" (Ascend, p. 514).

This argument, however, does not bear scrutiny. The First Vatican Council, which laid down the conditions for infallibility, states that, among other requirements, the Pope must speak as the Pope, exercising his office of teaching the whole Church. In addition to the Latin Rite, there are five other liturgical Rites within the universal Church — some 12 million souls who would not have been directly affected by the introduction of the Novus Ordo. Liturgical precepts might in fact be morally wrong, since "they are not universally binding, and are not protected by the Church's infallibility" (Ascend, p. 516). Furthermore, "the doctrine of Papal infallibility, by stating in what respect the Pope cannot err, admits, in effect, that in all other areas of his vast prerogatives the Pope is completely fallible... [T]here is no divine promise that the Pope will not be permitted to use his great authority in the most wicked and destructive ways" (Great Sacrilege, pp. 21-22)

It is a moot point. Fr. Wathen finds that "Christ and the True Church, through the decree of Pope Pius II, Execrabilis, have rendered all the acts of the Council, and all that are done by virtue of the Council, null and void" (Ascend, p. 516). According to Execrabilis, no future council, and no pope, may overturn the solemn definitions of the Sacred Magisterium. Any council called to contravene existing Magisterial teaching was anathematized in advance; those involved incur, in addition to ecclesiastical censure, "the indignation of almighty God, and of Saints Peter and Paul, His Apostles."

Was the Traditional Latin Mass Suppressed?

In 1986, Pope John Paul II called together nine Cardinals and formed a papal commission. The commission's purpose was to examine the legal status of the Traditional Latin Mass, and it was to answer two questions: 1) Did Pope Paul VI abrogate the Latin Rite? And 2) Does any priest need permission to offer Mass in the Traditional Rite?

The commission concluded unanimously that Pope Paul did not abrogate the traditional rite; he never gave the bishops the authority to forbid celebration according to the traditional rite of Mass.

To the second question, the commission responded 8 votes in the negative, and one in the positive. Priests cannot be obligated to celebrate the new rite of mass; bishops cannot forbid or place restrictions on the celebration of the traditional rite, whether in public or in private.

According to Fr. Paul Leonard, the commission recommended that the Pope issue a papal decree based on the commission's findings, but "Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, the Vatican's Secretary of State, maneuvered the situation in such a manner so as to obstruct [issuance of a papal decree]." Cardinal Casaroli, a member of the commission in question, was also among those named as a secret society member when the Italian Register was published in 1976. He served as Prefect of the Pontifical Commission for the Revision of Canon Law — which produced the new 1983 Code, deleting specific mention of Freemasonry as forbidden.

Fr. Raymond V. Dunn, SJ, notes that the commission and its findings might have remained in obscurity, were it not for Alphons Cardinal Stickler, also a commission member, who has made known the findings ("The State of the Liturgy in the Catholic Church Today," Catholic Family News, October 1997, p. 15). "We have no official prohibition," Cardinal Stickler said, "and I think that the Pope would never establish an official prohibition... because of the words of Pius V, who said this was a mass forever" (Latin Mass Magazine, May 5, 1995).

"The Holy See," continues Fr. Leonard, "does recognize the right of the priest to celebrate the Traditional Mass, and this is borne out by the fact that whenever priests are unjustly suspended for celebrating the Tridentine Mass, against the will of their bishops, the Roman courts always nullify the penalty whenever the cases are appealed.

"This is just one more proof that it is not the traditional priests who are disobedient when they celebrate the Tridentine mass, but it is the bishops who are entirely outside the law when they... forbid the traditional Mass. This fact also clearly demonstrates that penalties inflicted on priests for celebrating the Traditional Mass are null and void, as is clearly stated in the Apostolic Constitution Quo Primum....." ("Traditional Mass Never Suppressed," The Remnant, 6/30/89)

The Indult

Dr. Coomaraswamy notes that "passing mention should be made of the changes mandated in the Missal of 1962 by Pope John XXIII, commonly called the 'Mass of John XXIII.' Though they appear now to be very minor by comparison to what came later on, many of the changes found in this Mass were significant, even radical for the time. In retrospect, I believe it can now be safely said that this Mass was used only for a time and that it was initially introduced 1) as a beginning step toward the Novus Ordo Missae; 2) to introduce the faithful to the idea that their time-honored rites could be changed; and 3) to determine how strong the resistance to the New Rite would be. The Mass of John XXIII became obsolete just three years after it was introduced..." (The Problems with the New Mass, p. 76).

The Indult, celebrated under the limited provisions of Pope John Paul II's Motu Proprio Ecclesia Dei with the approval of a diocesan bishop, is billed as the 'Tridentine Mass.' It is, in fact, the Mass of John XXIII — which, as Dr. Coomaraswamy points out, differs from the Mass of Pius V in a number of ways. All the commemorative collects and the Confiteor and absolution before Communion have been deleted; many feasts are suppressed, and much is made "optional."

Fr. Morrison notes that "Traditional Catholics generally believe that no such 'indult' [permission] is necessary for the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass, which was canonized by Sacred Tradition and mandated 'in perpetuity' by Pope St. Pius V in his Solemn Bull Quo Primum [1570]. The form of the 'Indult' Mass is that of the Missale Romanum of 1962. Such masses are, in and of themselves, legitimate, as long as there is no admixture of the Novus Ordo Mass with the Traditional Latin Mass. Some diocesan 'Indult' Masses are 'pseudo-traditional,' in that they are a hybrid, using the New Mass calendar, lectionary, rubrics, vernacular, Communion-in-the-hand, altars facing the people, Hosts consecrated at a Novus Ordo Mass or other untraditional variations.

Part 4: Fruits Of The 'New Mass'

Dr. Berger, a Lutheran socioligist, is forthright in his evaluation of the impact of the New mass on the Catholic population. "The Liturgical Revolution — no other term will do — is a mistake touching millions of Catholics at the core of their religious belief," he said. "Let me only mention the sudden abolition, and indeed, prohibition of the Latin mass, the transposition of the officiating priest from the front to the back of the altar (the first change symbolically diminished the universality of the Mass, the second, its transcendent reference) ad the massive assault on a wide variety of forms of popular piety... If a thoroughly malicious sociologist, bent on injuring the Catholic community as much as possible, had been able to be advisor to the Church, he could hardly have done a better job" (Homiletic and Pastoral Review, Feb. 1979, cited by Coomaraswamy).

Proof of the damage is easy to find. Despite continual talk of the ongoing Catholic 'renewal,' statistics show a generalized withering since the introduction of the Novus Ordo Missae. According to Michael Davies, "Mass attendance has decreased by percentages ranging from a modest 22% in England to 70% in France and Holland; there has been a catastrophic decline in baptisms, as much as 50% in Britain and the U.S.A. Conversions have plunged, seminary enrollment has declined by anything from 25% to 80%, while ordinations have declined as much as 97%.

"To make matters worse, there has been an exodus from the priestly and religious life. In the U.S.A. alone, 10,000 priests have abandoned their vocation and over 50,000 nuns have left their convents" (The Goldfish Bowl: the Church Since Vatican II, pp. 24-25). In less than seven years after the introduction of the new Mas, priests in the world decreased form 413,438 to 243,307 — nearly 50% (Holy See Statistics).

Part 5: Conclusions

The New Mass, concludes Fr. Wathen, is "Humanist, Protestant (meaning anti-sacrificial), irreverent, or, if none of these things, then pointless, purposeless, and therefore mischievous. Added to these faults is the fact that it is questionably valid with respect to its consecratoin formula..." (Ascend, p. 5470548). Most of his charges have been substantiated in this newsletter, but a summary of sorts is in order.

The Novus Ordo is probably invalid

Fr. Wathen notes that "suspicion of the invalidity of the New Mass is drawn from the new Missal and from the attendant features; they who officiate at this Meal are no longer priests but presidents; they stand not at an altar but a table — not so much to offer it as to 'celebrate'..." Genuflections and acts of latria due Our transubstantiated Lord have been suppressed. Altar rails, suggestive of kneeling, have been removed. As the Ottaviani Intervention noted, there are in the New Mass an "implicit denials of Christ's Real Presence and the doctrine of Transubstantiation."

The words of Consecration. The changes in the words of Consecration have been fully discussed; because of their deviation from the form defined by the Council of Trent, and their violation of the Bull De Defectibus, the validity of the Sacrament is highly questionable.

The intention. Pope Leo XIII published his Bull, Apostolicae Curae, in 1896, declaring Anglican orders to be invalid. He reached that decision based upon two factors — the defect of form (the words of their ordination rite failed to provide the necessary signification) and defect of intention. Either of those defects, he said, would have been sufficient to render the alleged sacrament invalid.

The defect of intention cited by the Pontiff refers to the intent of the rite's framers. "Concerning the mind or intention, insomuch as it is itself something interior, the Church does not pass judgment; but insofar as it is externally manifested, She is bound to judge of it," Pope Leo explained. The Anglicans had demonstrated, by their own words and writings, an intention to concoct a new type of priesthood substantially different from the one specified by Christ, and therefore His Church.

The architects of the New Mass have written and spoken endlessly on the newness of their creation. The altered role of the priest, the suppression of sacrificial terminology in favor of "meal" terminology, the alteration of the words of Consecration, etc. have all been externally manifested in the Novus Ordo. As the Ottaviani Intervention explicitly states, "it is obvious that the New Mass has no intention of presenting the Faith taught by the Council of Trent... [It] teems with insinuations or manifest errors against the integrity of the Catholic Faith."

Furthermore, the Novus Ordo was concocted by the Church's avowed enemy, a Freemason, in cooperation with six formal heretics who deny transubstantiation. ("Can any person of sound mind conceivably suppose," asks Omlor, "that Annibale Bugnini, that most talented operative of Freemasonry, which is the 'mystical body of Satan,' would be taking pained to preserve the validity of the Catholic mass and would be making sure that the Mystical Body of Christ was being properly signified in the words of the Consecration form?") There is, in other words, clear defect of intention on the part of the New Mass.

No doubtful sacraments. Omlor notes that "a sacramental form that is ambiguous is ipso facto invalid," citing the Catechism of the Council of Trent (McCarthy's Case, p. 25). Coomaraswamy further explains that receipt of a questionable sacrament is sacrilege — an act directed against God. Fr. Henry Davis, S.J., writes that "in conferring the sacraments, as also in the consecration of the mass, it is never allowed to adopt a probable course of action as to validity and to abandon the safer course. The contrary was explicitly condemned by Pope Innocent III... to do so would be a grievous sin against religion, namely an act of irreverence toward what Christ Our Lord has instituted. It would be a grievous sin against charity, as the recipient would probably be deprived of the graces and effects of the Sacrament. It would be a grievous sin against justice, as the recipient has a right to valid sacraments.

"Matter and form must be certainly valid. Hence one may not follow a probable opinion and use either doubtful matter or form. Acting otherwise, one commits sacrilege" (Moral and Pastoral Theology, p. 27, cited by Coomaraswamy, p. 63).

The Novus Ordo is a Sacrilege

"Whether the New Mass is valid or invalid, it is an atrocity, an unspeakable attack on the True Mass," writes Fr. Wathen, who has contended steadfastly that the Novus Ordo is sacrilegious. "The New Mass itself is an abuse of the Catholic Mass, which was given a definite and immutable form by Pope St. Pius V, exactly so that abuses could be avoided, discerned and condemned" (Ascend, p. 513). Fr. Wathen's book, The Great Sacrilege was published in 1971: long before many of the evil effects of the New mass were obvious, Fr. Wathen maintained that the Novus Ordo's irreverent mimicries" were to be avoided, that the sanctuaries in which it was enacted were to be regarded as desecrated, "impious and sordid actions" having been committed there (Canon 1172, Par. 1.3, cited by Fr. Wathen). The Great Sacrilege remains essential readinf for those who would understand the scope of the travesty thrust upon Catholics.

Protestant ethos. The incorporation of heretical Protestant constructs and prayers in the New Mass, with the assistance of Protestant advisors, has been documented. The designers of the Novus Ordo invited into the consulting process those whose specific errors separated them from the Church; the resulting rite cannot but subvert the faith of Catholic who was, heretofore, isolated from Protestant error.

Jewish Intent. "Keep in mind," Omlor writes, "that all insertions or deletions in the Novus Ordo are the result of Jewry's insistence for a complete overhauling of the Catholic mind. A reshaping of the Catholic thinking and attitude toward Jewry and thus toward God and the Truths He gave us is their goal. What better way to change Catholic thinking than to change the Mass Book, and Ritual, the heart of Catholic belief and worship? For, as you pray, so you think .... as you think, so you prayer... the one reflects the other. The unorthodox thinking and attitude exhibited by V-2 Catholics today stems mainly from the new attitude and thinking they have acquired due to the profane changes effected by the Novus Ordo. The constant repitition of arrogant 'prayers' of nonbelievers... amounts to the programmed reconditioning of the mind... concerning Apostolic doctrine and beliefs." (The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Knox Query, p. 19).

The re is considerable support for Omlor's change. Within the New Mass itself we find the substitution of a Jewish table grace for the traditional Suscipe, Sancte Pater in the Offertory. The Canon has been replaced by Eucharistic Prayers admittedly patterned on the Jewish berakah, or kiddush prayers. Prayers for the conversion of the jews and heretics have been deleted, and the "two covenant" theory repeatedly condemned by the Church finds expression in the prayers of Holy Week (Catholics now ask that the Jews may remain faithful to their covenant, as though ti coexists with the New Covenant of Jesus Christ). The Talmudic glorification of man pervades the New Rite, enshrining the very naturalism Popes have repeatedly condemned. Catholics are now instructed that Mass on the Jewish Sabbath fulfills their Sunday obligation.

Furthermore, the stated intention of assorted Jewish pressure groups to effect changes in Catholic thinking during the Second Vatican Council must be taken into account. A detailed examination of the subject is undertaken by Vicomte Leo de Leo de Poncins, in his 1967 book Judaism and the Vatican. De Poncins includes in his book a lengthy quotation rom the January 25, 1966 Look Magazine article, "How the Jews changed Catholic Thinking," written by that publication's senior editor, Joseph Roddy. The article gave many details of secret negotiations between Cardinal Bea and the leaders of the [Masonic] B'nai B'rith and the American Jewish Committee. Bea met with what the Look article termed a "latter day Sanhedrin" to "take questions the Jews wanted to hear answered;" Rabbi Abraham Heschel met with Pope Paul, whom he urged to purge Catholic doctrine and liturgy of all vestiges of anti-Semitism. A glance at the Novus Ordo indicates that the Jewish reform program is well underway.

Humanistic subversion. "The New Mass is the liturgy of the Conciliar anti-religion," says Fr. Wathen (Ascend, p. 545). "It is the embodiment and expression of the counter-theology of the Second Vatican Council," the Council which agreed that "all things on earth should be ordered to man, as to their summit and crown." In the writings of the Council narcissism and the toxic glorification of modern culture triumph. The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World declared that human life, including the life of the Church, was no longer ordered to God. Instead, "Christians cannot yearn for anything more ardently than to serve the men of the modern world" (#93). The Church, rather than proclaiming the debt to God, "proclaims the rights of man" (#41). Far from being entrusted with all truth, as previously held, the Church is now merely "joined with the rest of men in the search for truth" (#16). To these conceptual falsehoods of the New Mass gives liturgical expression. Fr. Wathen maintains that "every new mass offered, no matter how it is offered or by whom, or in what language, is a statement of belief in and acceptance of [this] Conciliar Humanism. It is the worship of the modern Baal 'Modern Man'" (Ascend, p. 545).

The Novus Ordo is an instrument of the World Revolution

"The place the New mass has in the grand design of World Revolution is a poorly kept secret," maintains Fr. Wathen, adding that its purpose is to mold Catholics "into servile citizens of the Global Commonwealth, which is being consolidated with every day that passes. The proper religious mentality for the New World Order is to worship God in the person of the People of God, which, of course, is nothing but the World State itself. Its chief doctrines will be those of Freemasonry, the Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of Man, democracy and socialism" (Ascend, p. 526). Through the New Mass and Conciliar teaching, he maintains that Catholics are being programmed to accept complete amalgamation into the One World Religion. "The New Mass is the rite of worship of the Global Chruch. It is bland and nebulous and plastic enough to serve for any religious creed and any ritual adaptation, as we all well know" (Ascend, p. 528).

"The purpose they had in mind for the New Liturgy — the word 'Mass' has all but disappeared — was, as they have said so often, mainly educational. To put it simply, their purpose is largely fulfilled. The people, for the most part, are religious zombies. And they are completely manageable, as, from their point of view, it has daily grown more easy to get to Heaven. By now it would see m there is no way to go to Hell, for it no longer exists" (ibid).

The Novus Ordo's Acceptance is a victory for Satan.

According to St. Alphonsus Liguori, "the devil has always attempted, by means of heretics, to deprive the world of the Mass, making them precursors of the anti-Christ, who, before anything else, will try to abolish and will actually abolish the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar, as a punishment for the sins of men, according to the prediction of Daniel, 'And strength was given him against the continual sacrifice' (Dan. 8:12)" (The Dignity and Duties of the Priest, cited by Coomaraswamy, p. 13). The acceptance of a probably invalid, undoubtedly sacrilegious Novus Ordo in lieu of the true Mass clearly advances Satan's plan. That the New Order of Mass should have been constructed with the official assistance of the heretics to whom St. Alphonsus refers demonstrates a Satanic 'game plan' unaltered across time.

Fr. Wathen's The Great Sacrilege ($10), The Ottaviani Intervention ($7), Fr. Cekada's The Problems with the Prayers of the Modern Mass ($4), and Dr. Coomaraswamy's The Problems with the New Mass ($7) are all published by Tan, and available from Catholic Treasures, P.O. Box 5034, Monrovia, CA 91017, (626) 359-4983.

1. Citation of Michael Davies' exhaustive research in no way implies this writer's agreement with his conclusions. As one E. A. Wilson's letter to the Remnant explained, Davies has "an uncanny ability for gathering correct facts and, after thoroughly examining those facts, reaching erroneous conclusions." (Cited by Omlor, in Questioning Validity of McCarthy's Case). Perhaps the only assumption that should be made regarding any quote in RealCatholicism is that, when it is presented favorably, this writer agrees with the particular quote itself.

2. The Council of Trent had been called in response to 'reformers' like Luther, who declared "all the brothels, all manslaughters, murders, thefts, and adulteries have wrought less evil than the abomination of the Popish Mass." Rejecting the notion of Sacrifice, Protestants have a 'Lord's Supper' with a table, rather than an altar, led by a designated presider without sacramental power.