Church History: How did the Novus Ordo Mass develop under P. Paul VI?

[Elf01]

Even though I think it is celebrated beautifully, I’d still attend the TLM if given the choice.

Which is fine. Provided you don’t imply that other choices are inferior.

 

[OraLabora]

I’m upset that I see clown masses,

Oh please give me a break. We can’t escape that old canard can we? I have in my 60 years, of which 40 were in the OF Mass, yet to ever see a “clown mass”.

30+ lay Eucharistic ministers at a Sunday Mass,

I’ve never seen more than about 5. At the abbey, zero.

Tabernacles no longer placed front and center

Tabernacles were not always front and center either before the Council. They were not to be front and center in conventual churches, cathedrals with chapters of cannons and churches with high tourist draw. I can provide documented proof… from 1935.

Priests directing the congregation to hold hands during the Our Father and much more.

Nothing to do with the form of the Mass.

Some of these abuses were unheard of in the TLM prior to VII.

And other forms of abuses were quite common back then. People going out in the middle of Mass for a smoke, priests tearing through the Mass with blazing speed. And an awful lot of whispered low Masses; though not technically an abuse as it was the norm, it was something that VII wanted, rightly, to change.

But the ambiguity of certain documents and the personal views of certain clergy members have allowed these fruits to spring up.

Everything to do with the attitude of the times, and nothing to do with the OF Mass.

Even though I think it is celebrated beautifully, I’d still attend the TLM if given the choice.

Given the choice I would take an OF like the one you describe and which largely is the Mass where I worship, over the TLM. But that’s just me.

 

[Dovekin]

I was referring to the benefit of the changes to the Mass and their affect on the Church as a whole.

Before Vatican II, while the earlier rite was in effect, Catholics in Italy, Germany, France, Spain fought one another on both sides of violent wars. Some assisted in the Holocaust.

I do not know what effect the reformed rituals have had, but I hope that Catholics would not behave as miserably as they did before Vatican II. The moral indifference throughout much of Europe in the early part of the last century is horrifying. If Catholic teaching on unquestioning obedience, antisemitism, etc. played any role in WW2, the reform does not have to pass a high bar. Are there invading armies marching in our streets? Are there bombs falling on our cities?

Of course, correlation is not causation. But if we allow correlation after the Council, we should look at it before the Council too.

 

[Crusader13]

I do not know what effect the reformed rituals have had, but I hope that Catholics would not behave as miserably as they did before Vatican II

I don’t even know how that is relevant to what the discussion is about. I’m talking about the Liturgical changes in the Mass, not the entire moral outlook of Catholics as whole before VII.

And other forms of abuses were quite common back then

I never denied there were abuses. I’d take whispered low masses and priests saying Mass quickly over what I’ve seen today.

 

[Crusader13]

Look, I can’t say anything else that I haven’t already said over these last two days. I believe the TLM to be a better form of the Mass than what I see at the OF. My reasons have nothing to do with the OF being invalid.

I gave several reasons and comparisons why I believe the changes did not bring about better catechesis or more reverence than what was already in place. I wanted to know how removing the reading of the Last Gospel, the St. Michael Prayer, the Judica Me and a host of other changes benefited the laity??? All I wanted was for someone to explain and give evidence that showed how the changes in the new Mass were BETTER and MORE EFFECACIOUS for the ENTIRE CHURCH. Not what we as individuals have experienced in our own small parishes.

Not one person has even bothered to show me that the changes in the Mass were even needed. What I have heard is people telling me the changes were in accordance with Sacrosanctum Concilium and voted upon by a majority of the clergy, including popes that are now Saints. The Church in her wisdom decided we needed these changes and it is through humble obedience that I accept them. Further refusal to accept these changes and the validity of them, fosters division and dissent and can be viewed as protest.

Ok, but how does that answer the questions that I asked? I’m not questioning if the changes were valid or authorized or voted upon by a majority of the clergy. I’m asking how did those changes help the church foster a better understanding and more reverence for the Mass? What can we point to that says, See here, removing all of these things and allowing all these other practices resulted in all of this good…

I believe what I believe because I can’t point to a single study or statistic that shows how the liturgical changes fostered anything more positive than what was already in place. If you say, well the changes were neither good nor bad; then why did we need them??? If we concede that maybe some of the changes weren’t beneficial, then what is wrong with praying and working towards reverting back to what was prior to their implementation? That’s not disobedience or dissent or division, it’s wanting to bring back that which was lost.

 

[OraLabora]

Not one person has even bothered to show me that the changes in the Mass were even needed.

Our abbot went over that with us a few years ago. The reasons were numerous. One was the accretion of so many rubrical details that priests got lost in the minutiae and were not able to pray the Mass. Liturgy is prayer, and praying the Mass is important. Some examples: very detailed instructions on how to hold fingers/thumbs; on the exact number of swings of incense and their exact placement, of the various types of bows and when to use them (full, mediocre, slight). I’ve posted examples elsewhere, from pre-Conciliar sources. This where the requirement for noble simplicity came from.

Then there was the issue of active participation, and the demand to have the Mass in the vernacular.

Lastly is the desire to have unity without uniformity, i.e. be more accommodating to non-Western cultures, where reverence is displayed differently. A simple example, where black is the funeral colour in Western countries but white is the funeral colour in Asia.

And to be honest, personally, I find people more “reverent” in the OF Mass in the sense that they are engaged with the liturgy rather than detached from it. I’ve seen that engagement displayed with a range of expressions from exuberance to reverent reserve.

One of the greatest experiences I’ve had over the years has been to participate in the World Oblate Congresses in Rome, from the first one in 2005 to the most recent one in 2017, and to be invited to be on the Congress organizing team.

Each day at the Congress, a different country was responsible for animating the Mass: providing the music, preparing the intercessions, readings in their language (we provided booklets with translations). It has been an eye opener to see how the different cultures influenced the liturgy. All expressions were beautiful and reverent, but very different. That first congress in 2005 was a huge revelation to me, and that’s when the wisdom of the Vatican II reforms to the liturgy and to the Church really struck me.

At the 2013 Congress we tried doing everything in Latin, but we lost so much richness and international diversity in doing so (and I say this as a lover of Latin liturgy; I belong to a Gregorian schola and I sing the LOTH in Latin Gregorian chant daily), we simply whitewashed over all the cultures, and we were called out on it in the post-Congress survey.

 

[OraLabora]

I don’t even know how that is relevant to what the discussion is about. I’m talking about the Liturgical changes in the Mass, not the entire moral outlook of Catholics as whole before VII.

The point was, I think (and Dovekin can correct me if I’m wrong) was that if we are going to try to correlate the moral decay of the Church to the liturgy after the council as traditionalists are wont to do, then it is fair game to attach the moral decay of the Church before the Council to the liturgy of that time. He’s called you on the fallacy of the argument that liturgy somehow the main influencer of Catholic behaviour.

Of course the liturgy was not the cause of moral depravity in the Church prior to the Council, and nor is it the cause after the Council.

The real cause is that mankind is a fallen species, and regardless of whatever liturgy is being used, immorality, dissension from Church teaching and other ills will continue to plague us until the end of time.

 

[Dovekin]

if we are going to try to correlate the moral decay of the Church to the liturgy after the council as traditionalists are wont to do, then it is fair game to attach the moral decay of the Church before the Council to the liturgy of that time.

Exactly!

The Church was not perfect before the Council. The Church is not oerfect now. If liturgy is a cause of problems now, liturgy was a cause of problems then.

There is a case that can be made that the earlier form of the liturgy was indeed a source of corruption in the Church. The basilica form of the Church, for example, was copied from secular architecture, where the ruler sits at one end of a hall and people approach the exalted person through a gauntlet of other worthier courtiers. That exalts the monarchical leader to the detriment of the spirit acting throughout the Church. Circular layouts, more common among Benedictines, altered the dynamic intentionally to move away from a domineering model of religion. It is more complicated, but the authoritarian, domineering tendencies in the Extraordinary Form are obvious when you look for them.