Any official Chuch documents/writings on why the Church want to use the modern short version of the confiteor ad other modern version of prayers at Mass?
The form of the Confiteor currently prescribed is not particularly “modern.” The 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia
explains some of the development of this prayer, as well as the wide variation that has always existed. In part:
|]t is in Micrologus (Bernold of Constance, d. 1100) that we first find the Confiteor quoted as part of the introduction of the Mass. The form here is: “Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, istis Sanctis et omnibus Sanctis et tibi frater, quia peccavi in cogitatione, in lucutione, in opere, in pollutione mentis et corporis. Ideo precor te, ora pro me.” . . .
The form, and especially the list of saints invoked, varies considerably in the Middle Ages. Cardinal Bona (Rerum liturg. libri duo, II, 5-7) quotes a number of such forms.
In many Missals it is shorter than ours: “Confiteor Deo, beatae Mariæ, omnibus sanctis et vobis” (so the Sarum Missal, ed. Dickinson Burntisland, 1861- 1883). In the Missal of Paul III (1534-1549) it is: “Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, B. Mariæ semper Virgini, B. Petro et omnibus Sanctis et vobis Fratres, quia peccavi,
meâ culpâ: precor vos orare pro me” (Bona, loc. cit.). Since the edition of Pius V (1566-1572) our present form is the only one to be used throughout the Roman Rite, with the exceptions of
the Carthusian, Carmelite, and Dominican Offices, whose Missals, having been proved to have existed for more than 200 years,
are still allowed. These three forms are
quite short, and contain only one “meâ culpâ”; the Dominicans invoke, besides the Blessed Virgin, St. Dominic.
I’m sure that part of the reason for reverting to a simpler version, more along the lines of what the Carmelites and Dominicans have been using, was that in the modern form of the Mass the people are expected to say (and presumably memorize) the Confiteor themselves, rather than having the servers say it for them.
