Was The OF Created By Protestants?

[rfournier103]

As a former Traditionalist, I was taught that the Ordinary Form of the Mass which Pope Paul VI created in 1969 was written by him with the help of 6 Protestant ministers and that’s why the Mass is “Protestantized.” How can I respond to this ridiculous claim?

The fact that there were Protestant ministers present at the Council is actually a good thing.

First… of course they were not allowed to participate. They were OBSERVERS. Whatever we Catholics do, many Protestants are always curious about what’s going on with us. It’s like the Red Sox and Yankees. No matter what the Yankees are up to, the Sox are ALWAYS interested. I would actually be alarmed if Catholicism wasn’t a blip on their radar. That would mean the Catholic Church doesn’t matter. Vatican II was and is good for ALL Christians.

Secondly… find a copy of the Documents of Vatican II. I don’t have one myself, but want one. I think (help me here if I’m wrong) that each section will list the members of each individual sub-council. I’d bet seriously that they are all Catholic.

Thirdly… Take a good look at the OF Mass. What about the OF is Protestant-ish? The fact that it is celebrated in English/French/Spanish/German/Italian??? The priest facing the people?

I recently borrowed my father’s old missal from 1961 (you know; the one with all the Latin in it), and saw that the prayers used in the mass today are almost exactly word-for-word the prayers used pre-Vatican II. I could tell this because of the English translation on the right side. We have readings from the Old Testament and the New. The same scriptures in use by Catholics centuries before the reformation.

Your friend is afraid of the fictitous Protestant ‘boogey-man’. He needs to relax and take a good look at Vatican II and the mass we use today.

 

[Leon_Bloy]

People need to read the actual Roman Missal in the Novus Ordo, including the instructions to the priest in red print (especially the Roman Canon, or "Eucharistic Prayer I,’ which is identical to the one in the Tridentine Mass), and then figure it out for themselves. What they will find is that it is very, very much similar to the older form of the mass, especially after the end of the penitential rite.

 

[Armor_of_Light]

I couldn’t agree more, but you know how Traditionalists are. If you even look at a Protestant, sometimes they can accuse you of worshiping with them I guess.

Watch it.

 

[ProVobis]

We have readings from the Old Testament and the New. The same scriptures in use by Catholics centuries before the reformation.

Not quite the same. No matter how you cut it, the English readings have been interpreted through translations, paraphrasing, and what not. The Reformers were very focused on such self-interpretation of the Bible. And today we have over 20,000 Protestant denominations to show for it. Besides the Mass preceded the Bible compilation; we don’t take Mass instructions from it.

 

[rfournier103]

Not quite the same. No matter how you cut it, the English readings have been interpreted through translations, paraphrasing, and what not. The Reformers were very focused on such self-interpretation of the Bible. And today we have over 20,000 Protestant denominations to show for it. Besides the Mass preceded the Bible compilation; we don’t take Mass instructions from it.

Very true. But what I was getting at is that we have always had reading of scripture in the mass for as long as there HAS been scripture. Also, DOCTRINE was never changed. Even the most fringe traditionalist must realize that the most basic Catholic doctrines NEVER EVER EVER change. To think otherwise is folly.

 

[Zekariya]

People need to read the actual Roman Missal in the Novus Ordo, including the instructions to the priest in red print (especially the Roman Canon, or "Eucharistic Prayer I,’ which is identical to the one in the Tridentine Mass), and then figure it out for themselves. What they will find is that it is very, very much similar to the older form of the mass, especially after the end of the penitential rite.

“Say the black; do the red.” As a popular blogger and traditionalist priest (in Communion with Rome) says.

 

[rfournier103]

“Say the black; do the red.” As a popular blogger and traditionalist priest (in Communion with Rome) says.

The pastor at my parish mentioned that he was told that at St. John’s Seminary in Boston when he was a seminarian. Good advice.

 

[ProVobis]

Also, DOCTRINE was never changed. Even the most fringe traditionalist must realize that the most basic Catholic doctrines NEVER EVER EVER change. To think otherwise is folly.

In the true sense, the doctrine never changes. How it is expressed, whether in English or Polish or any other language is a different story though. Even in the early centuries, the Latin didn’t always agree with the Greek. But you knew that already.

 

[Cavaradossi]

Not quite the same. No matter how you cut it, the English readings have been interpreted through translations, paraphrasing, and what not.

The same thing could be said of the Lain Vulgate. Everywhere where the Greek or Hebrew was unclear St. Jerome engaged by necessity in interpretation when translating. Interpretation through translation is not a bad thing in itself.

 

[ProVobis]

The same thing could be said of the Vulgate.

And that’s why Trent defined what Bible was to be followed.

 

[Cavaradossi]

And that’s why Trent defined what Bible was to be followed.

Yes, but would you agree that St. Jerome engaged in interpretation when translating the Scriptures into the Lain tongue? It’s not like interpretation and translation are bad things in themselves, only that certain translations are of questionable merit.

 

[Zekariya]

Yes, but would you agree that St. Jerome engaged in interpretation when translating the Scriptures into the Lain tongue? It’s not like interpretation and translation are bad things in themselves, only that certain translations are of questionable merit.

I would wager to say that every translation follows the interpretation of the translator(s).

 

[Cavaradossi]

I would wager to say that every translation follows the interpretation of the translator(s).

I would go even further and say that it is impossible to translate something without first interpreting it.

 

[Zekariya]

I would go even further and say that it is impossible to translate something without first interpreting it.

Agreed!

 

[ProVobis]

Yes, but would you agree that St. Jerome engaged in interpretation when translating the Scriptures into the Lain tongue?

A lot of the scriptures were already in Latin, the Vetus Latina. But it was of very poor quality, it needed to be revised in light of the newer interpretations from the Aramaic, Greek, and Hebrew. But you’re right, a certain amount of interpretation was done, and even in the Hebrew and Greek. When the printing press came along though, the Church decided to create some harder standards.

 

[ProVobis]

I would go even further and say that it is impossible to translate something without first interpreting it.

omnis traductor traditor (every translator is a traitor) every translation is a corruption of the original; the reader should take heed of unavoidable imperfections.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_phrases_(O

 

[triumphguy]

Hi Tabycat

No-one is saying it was “created” by protestants - it was of course created by the Council.

The controversy is around how (if at all) protestant ministers influenced the creation.

Edit - suffice to say, given the collapse in vocations and the strong decline in mass attendance, following the council until the present day, I do struggle to see the changes in a positive light.

Even as a small child, when me, my mum and my younger sisters went to mass with my (late) granny (born in the 1920s) - I was very aware that my grannys Catholicism seemed somehow different to our Catholicism.

And I could never imagine how I would ever be like her, based on the format of the novus ordo which never made much of an impression on me at all, such that I stopped going to Church as soon as I could (16) and did not return for many years, until I was 29. (my return was purely down to the grace of God in my opinion).

Cheers!
GWright

The Council was universal in effect. While vocations are down in some countries they are up in others. Perhaps the rise or fall in vocations is more due to the culture of the countries rather than the council,otherwise all vocations everywhere would rise or fall together.

 

[TimothyH]

And that’s why Trent defined what Bible was to be followed.

Trent defined what Bible was to be followed at that specific time.

Trent did not intend to stop scholarship with regard to translation of scripture. Trent did not rule out better translations which might be approved by the Church later on.

Remember what Trent was - a response to the Reformation in general and the proliferation of Bibles being translated by relatively unedcuated people and printed in little shops all over Europe as a result of the invention of the printing press 100 years earlier. That was the intent.

Trent could not have forseen the ability to bring hundreds of archeologists, historians, linguistists and theologians together over the internet to study and ultimately translate a better Bible. The Vatican is digitizing their entire document archive and putting it online.

The best translators in the world at the time of Trent could not have possibly referenced even a small portion of the resources available to us today. Trent intended to stop the proliferation of substandard mom-and-pop shop Bibles with wildly inaccurate translations.

-Tim-

 

[TimothyH]

The Council was universal in effect. While vocations are down in some countries they are up in others. Perhaps the rise or fall in vocations is more due to the culture of the countries rather than the council,otherwise all vocations everywhere would rise or fall together.

Most of the vocation numbers are for diocesan priests and ignore vocations to religious life, religious priesthood and completely ignores the explosion in the diaconate all over the world.

Bennedict XVI recently took western bishops to the woodshed for promoting diocesan priesthood at the expense of religious life.

I remember a recent thread bemoaning the fact that there was one priest at a recent ordination in New York City until it was pointed out that the one priest was diocesan while 13 (as I recall) religious priests were ordained that day as well.

-Tim-

 

[1AugustSon7]

… The word was in the Eucharistic Prayer either by direct mention or in a euchological way.

Coolest. Word. Ever. Had to say it. And as ever, thank-you Brother.

Now to the OP/subject:

“May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands, for the praise and glory of His Name; for our good, and the good of all his holy Church.”

'nuff said.

My Protestant best friend since high school was over this weekend. He attends (rarely) a very modern Protestant mega-church. He was shocked (in Catholic: scandalized) to hear the Beatles and other older/early rock songs being played in their service, and told his very faithful mother, “Mom, you realize these guys were probably high when they wrote this, right?”

He’s been to an Italian OF Midnight Mass and one or two other OF Masses. Here’s what he said to me about it:

“… Now [you] Catholics. You do religion.”

There’s just something about the Catholic Mass that seperates it from the herd, even the most modernized versions at least to, e.g., Protestants. For my Protestant friend, even very (by Catholic standards) modernized and “toned-down” Masses constitute a ‘boat-load’ - a “whopper” - of “religion”. The priest’s chanting at some parts made him feel as if he was being transported interiorly (not his actual words, because he didn’t know how to describe it) into a certain ‘something else’. For him, contact with the holy and the eminently spiritual could only be described as “religion” in his vocabularly: i.e., something profoundly different and new. Something touched his soul, and because it was simultaneously radically new and radically intimate, his instinst was something like the “fight or flight” instinct.

Now imagine what my Protestant friend would have said if he walked into an EF in full solemnity: it would have been a “religion” overload and it would have been the first and only time he was willing to attend a Catholic Mass. Next Sunday, he is coming with me to our city’s most spectacular and beautiful Church -designed after Notre Dame in Paris- for the simple reason that it is our city’s landmark and he feels somehow duty bound to experience it as such, partly as a denizen of the city and partly as a Christian. “Walking” him through all that “religion” in the OF is going to be work enough. I couldn’t possibly walk him through the EF: there’s just too many layers for a beginner in all of this “religion” experience.

**1366 **The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit…

**1367 **The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: “The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different.” "And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner. . . this sacrifice is truly propitiatory."190

That’s from the CCC. Reading it and the paragraphs around it make it absolutely clear what happens at Mass, as it has always happened in every valid Mass throughout history. If Protestants as such were consulted at any point, at these points their opinions were certainly taken simply as such: their opinions. If there was a coup d’etat at Vatican II, it more than failed; indeed, it completely back-fired: in fact, never in history has the truth and beauty of the Mass been so plainly and clearly described as it is, e.g., by the modern CCC; moreover, what I quoted from the OF above absolutely explodes any possibility of misconceiving Catholic doctrine or belief as it regards the Eucharist, especially because we are expected to express it - to actually say, even pray it - (to the priest) and in the vernacular. Ony wilfull blindness or a spritual curse (the state of spritual blindness) could possibly cause someone to see the OF as being “Protestant”. No Protestant would ever beg God to accept a Eucharistic “sacrifice” at a priest’s “hands”.