50 Year Anniversary of the First Mass in the Vernacular -- "Afraid of the Reactions of the Conservatives"

The Mass of Paul VI first celebrated in 1965 in the
Parish of All Saints According to the Missal of that year
partly in the
vernacular 

(Rome) This Saturday marks the 50th anniversary celebration of the first Holy Mass by Pope Paul VI. according to the Missal of 1965. Pope Francis wants to remember this event with a visit and a Holy Mass at that Roman parish in which Paul VI. celebrated it on the same day 50 years ago (see report 50 Years Ago Celebrated Paul VI. first Mass in the Vernacular ). A minimalist program and the organization is out of the ordinary. The reason for this  behind the walls of the Vatican is the fear of "reactions of  the conservatives".

Official Presentation

The Italian news agency ANSA has published a short preliminary report on the event.

"On Saturday, March 7, 2015 at 6pm,  Pope Francis will celebrate Mass in the Roman parish of All Saints. The Pope will recall in this way in the same church and exactly 50 years later the Mass which Pope Paul VI. celebrated for the first time in Italian in accordance with the renewed liturgical norms that had been established by the Second Vatican Council. The visit coincides with the 75th anniversary of the death of St. Luigi Orione, as the Superior General of the Little Work of Divine Providence, Don Flavio Peloso recalled."

As far as the official  message of the  Pope's memorial celebration, which the event recalls, was only the first stage of further, more radical reforms.The 1965 Missal was appropriate to the appeal to the Second Vatican Council.  But the same does not apply to the following stages that led to the liturgical reform of 1969/1970, which went far beyond the requirements of the Council and while still having a justification in the Council documents are non-binding provisions.  

The Program

The liturgical reform represents the most dramatic event in  recent history. That's why the manner in which the Holy See will remember it is so astonishing. The 1965 Missal was only a short-lived stage, which has, except the vernacular, so little in common with the actual liturgical reform.  So why the memorial, if it's not the Schmiedls, but the Schmieds who will be  thought of in four years, namely the actual liturgical reform of 1969?  Is the representation meant to  awaken by the intermediate stage and fuzzy representations, the impression that the liturgical reform was covered by the Second Vatican Council?

On the one hand Pope Francis is giving the most attention and the same day  to the memory to the reform, on the other hand, it should be a quick visit. The amount budgeted for the Pope's visit time is "extremely small,"  Chiesa e postconcilio says:  The time for celebration will be followed by a quick greeting to the community of the Order of the Sons of Divine Providence of Don Orione, who oversee the parish, and a short stop in the garden of the associated school. The visit is organized by the Secretariat of State and not by the Prefect of the Pontifical Household, as would be usual.

The Unofficial Representation

"The reason for this is not found naturally in official documents, but it can be heard in all corridors in the offices of the Holy See: They are afraid of reactions of the  'conservatives'" said the well-informed,  traditional Roman Blog Chiesa e postconcilio .

Chiesa e postconcilio finds the Vatican's concern about "conservative" reactions amusing, because "in the past 50 years there had been  no protests of traditional Catholics, nor 'conservatives', against the Missal of 1965 and it is not against the Novus Ordo Missae  from 1969."  It was and will be pointed on the diminutio of the Novus Ordo.

Chiesa e postconcilio writes: "More than 'reactions' of the 'conservatives'.  but the reasons for the 'conservatives' are  to be feared.The test run of the Novus Ordo was carried out in 1967, mind you in Latin, and retired in most fierce criticism. The affirmative vote of the first Synod of Bishops was clearly in the minority. The reason was that in 1967 it was rejected, but nevertheless the Mass introduced in 1969 was fundamentally different from that of the 1965 Missal.

"Reform of the Reform:"  Missale 1962 and Missale 1969 Merged in the Missale 1965?

The 1965 Missal was actually exactly what the Council had wanted: the Liturgy of the Word in the vernacular, the Eucharistic celebration in Latin, plenty of space for the laity, including the most expendable "prayer of the faithful", which included seemingly  daring simplification of many parts of the liturgy etc. This is the view of Pope Benedict XVI., who followed the even greater liturgist Klaus Gamber. We will probably never know whether the "reform of the reform" Benedict should have been in the unlikely attempt to bring together the 1962 Missal and the Missal of 1969 based on the 1965 Missal. It's an experiment which would not have satisfied both  Catholics and the modernists. But so it goes with all attempts to impose from above a theoretical basis of liturgy and spirituality.

A  rapidly assembled  1965 Missal  was expected to wrest the liturgy from 'the crazy reformers', but it reached the exact opposite.  There the Protestant taste of the 'reformers' was not sufficiently revolutionary, it disappeared  quickly into oblivion with  Annibale Bugnini  whose actions can never be deplored enough.

Contempt by "Reformers"

Given that we haven't even experienced and we are not experiencing protests by faithful Catholics, but the exact opposite, namely a decided opposition without ifs and buts and full of contempt on the part of many too many bishops and priests against the traditional rite, who were driven by a current, which has now become a raging flood.

All this would actually be incredible enough, had we not have been bludgeoned repeatedly and had the contempt of those  we feel should be shepherds and supports to us actually, instead of recognizing our spiritual sensitivity that we the might prefer the Roman Rite antiquior. It is not something that became  today, but that of two thousand years of the Church and belongs to the whole Church, a universal and eternal Rome. A universal law of the Church, the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum assures us that right. And so it was also confirmed by Cardinal Burke in his recent interview.

Not afraid of "Reactions", but the Reasons of Tradition

We are not obligated to the reasons ,  who for us the shining power of dogmas and if yet is not able to warm  priestly (?) hearts of those that are currently tearing down all the walls, but are ready and respectfully as ever to follow the current pope, while he has ignored or defied his predecessors. And it seems as though there is nothing of which  the masters of the newly proclaimed tenderness   could be mildly persuaded. 

So what do they have to fear? Our weapons are the rosary, adoration and loyalty. If anything, they would do well to fear the Lord, whose mercy has never been separated from His righteousness," said Chiesa e postconcilio .

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
image: Parrocchia Ognissanti

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

Link to Katholisches...

AMDG