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This article is about the post-Vatican-II changes to the Mass; for an explanation of the current structure of the Mass, see Mass (Catholic Church).

The Mass of Pope Paul VI is the liturgy of the Catholic Mass of the Roman Rite promulgated by Paul VI in 1969, after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). It is the present ordinary or normal [1] form of the Roman Rite of the Mass. [2]

Mass at Szczepanów, Poland on 10 May 2003, with then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, while Per ipsum is chanted.

For other names that have been applied to this form of the Roman-Rite Mass, such as “Novus Ordo” and “Ordinary Form”, see below.
Contents:
1. The text
2. History
3. Beginnings of the revision
4. The Second Vatican Council and its immediate consequences
5. The 1970 Missal
6. Other changes
7. Criticism of the revision
8. Preparing a more literal English translation
9. Names used for the Mass of Paul VI
10. References
11. External links

1. The text

The current official text of the Mass of Paul VI in Latin is the third typical edition of the revised Roman Missal, published in 2002 (after being promulgated in 2000) and reprinted with corrections and updating in 2008; translations into the vernacular languages have appeared or (as in the case of English) are being prepared. Two earlier typical editions of the revised Missal were issued in 1970 (promulgated in 1969) and 1975. The liturgy contained in the 1570-1962 editions of the Roman Missal is frequently referred to as the Tridentine Mass: all these editions placed at the start the text of the bull Quo primum in which Pope Pius V linked the issuance of his edition of the Roman Missal to the Council of Trent. Only in the 1962 edition is this text preceded by a short decree, Novo rubricarum corpore, declaring that edition to be, from then on, the typical edition, to which other printings of the Missal were to conform.

For details of the Order of Mass in the Mass of Paul VI, see Mass.

2. History

The Liturgical Movement of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which arose from the work of Dom Prosper Guéranger, founder of Solesmes Abbey, encouraged the laity to “live” the liturgy, by attending services (not only Mass) often, understanding what they meant, and following the priest in heart and mind. It envisaged only minor reforms of the liturgy itself; the most important changes it sought affected the calendar. It also focused on promoting Gregorian Chant.

By the 1920s, the Liturgical Movement still did not advocate a full-scale revision of the rite of Mass. However it argued for changes to practices such as: the priest blessing the Host and chalice with many signs of the cross after the consecration, while on the other hand speaking before the consecration of already offering a sacrifice; the priest reciting many of the most important prayers inaudibly; duplications such as the second Confiteor.

Another objective of the Movement was the introduction of the vernacular language (in particular, into the Mass of the Catechumens, i.e. the part of the liturgy which includes the readings from the Bible). This, it was believed, would assist the congregation’s spiritual development by enabling them to participate in the celebration of Mass with understanding. Pope Pius XII, who had a particular interest in the liturgy, wrote in his 1947 encyclical Mediator Dei that “the use of the mother tongue in connection with several of the rites may be of much advantage to the people”, though he stated at the same time that only the Holy See had the authority to grant permission for the use of the vernacular.[2] He granted permission for the use of local languages in the renewal of baptismal promises in the Easter Vigil service.

By this time, scholars had discovered how and when many elements of varied provenance had come to be incorporated into the Roman Rite of Mass and subsequently preserved in Pope Pius V’s 1570 revision of the liturgy. In section 4 of Mediator Dei, Pope Pius XII praised the work of these scholars, while insisting that it was for the Holy See to judge what action to take on the basis of their findings. The commission established by Pope Pius V had not succeeded, because of the insufficient resources at its disposal, in achieving the aim attributed to it in Pope Pius V’s bull Quo Primum, namely to restore the liturgy to “the original form and rite of the holy Fathers”. For instance, the general intercessions or prayer of the faithful, of which a slight trace remained in the isolated single word “Oremus” (Let us pray), had not been restored to the Mass liturgy.

3. Beginnings of the revision

The Roman Missal was revised on a number of occasions after 1570: after only 34 years, Pope Clement VIII made a general revision, as did Pope Urban VIII 30 years later. Other Popes added new feasts or made other minor adjustments. It was not until the twentieth century, however, that work began on a more radical rewriting.

In response to a decree of the First Vatican Council (1870), Pope Pius X introduced in 1911 a new arrangement of the Psalter for use in the Breviary. In the bull Divino afflatu, he described this change as “a first step towards a correction of the Roman Breviary and Missal”. A Society of St. Pius X site states that this revision of the Breviary “significantly unsettled” clerics and encountered criticism. [3] The laity will only have noticed the accompanying change whereby on Sundays, the Mass liturgy ceased to be generally taken from the proper or common of the saint whose feast fell on that day, and began instead to be that of the Sunday.

In 1955, Pope Pius XII made substantial changes to the liturgies for Palm Sunday, the Easter Triduum and the Vigil of Pentecost. [4] The Palm Sunday blessing of palms was freed from elements, such as the recitation of the Sanctus, that were relics of an earlier celebration of a separate Mass for the blessing, and the procession was simplified. Among the changes for Holy Thursday were the moving of the Mass from morning to evening, thus making room for a morning Chrism Mass, and the introduction into the evening Mass of the rite of the washing of feet. Changes to the Good Friday liturgy included moving it from morning to afternoon, and allowing the congregation to receive Holy Communion, which had formerly been reserved to the priest; an end was also put to the custom whereby, at the communion, the priest drank some unconsecrated wine into which he had placed part of the consecrated host. There were more numerous changes to the Easter Vigil service:

The service was to be celebrated on the night leading to Easter Sunday instead of Holy Saturday morning;

The triple candlestick which had previously been lit at the start of the service was replaced with the Paschal candle and candles held by each member of the congregation;

New ceremonies were introduced, such as the renewal of baptismal promises (in the vernacular) and the inscribing of the Arabic numerals of the year on the Paschal candle;

The prayer for the (Holy Roman) Emperor in the Exultet was replaced with a newly composed prayer;

Eight Old Testament readings were omitted, another was shortened, and the priest was no longer obliged to read the passages quietly while they were being read or chanted aloud;

The “Last Gospel” (John 1:1-14) that had customarily ended Mass was omitted.

At the Vigil of Pentecost, the traditional blessing of baptismal water, accompanied by the Litany of the Saints and six Old Testament readings, was omitted completely. These were still printed in the Missal, which, except for the replacement of the Holy Week liturgies, remained unchanged and was not considered to constitute a new editio typica superseding that of Pope Pius X, which was published by Pope Benedict XV in 1920.

Pope John XXIII, who succeeded Pius XII in 1958, added some new feasts and made some other changes to the liturgical calendar, as well as amending some of the rubrics. In his 1962 edition of the Missal, he also deleted the word “perfidis” (Latin: “faithless”) from the Good Friday prayer for the Jews, and added the name of St. Joseph to the Canon of the Mass. The second change was particularly significant, as many had considered the text of the Canon to be practically untouchable.

4. The Second Vatican Council and its immediate consequences

The liturgy was among the matters considered by the Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965. On 4 December 1963, the Council issued a Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy known as Sacrosanctum Concilium, section 50 of which read as follows:

The rite of the Mass is to be revised in such a way that the intrinsic nature and purpose of its several parts, as also the connection between them, may be more clearly manifested, and that devout and active participation by the faithful may be more easily achieved.

For this purpose the rites are to be simplified, due care being taken to preserve their substance; elements which, with the passage of time, came to be duplicated, or were added with but little advantage, are now to be discarded; other elements which have suffered injury through accidents of history are now to be restored to the vigor which they had in the days of the holy Fathers, as may seem useful or necessary. [3]

Sacrosanctum Concilium further provided that (amongst other things) a greater use of the Scriptures should be made at Mass, and that vernacular languages should be more widely employed.

In 1964, Pope Paul VI, who had succeeded John XXIII the previous year, established the Consilium ad exsequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia, the Council for Implementing the Constitution on the Liturgy. The instruction Inter oecumenici of 26 September 1964, issued by the Sacred Congregation of Rites while the Council was still in session, and coming into effect on 7 March 1965 [5] made significant changes to the existing liturgy, though the form of the rite was substantially preserved. Some sources speak of a “1965 Missal”, but this generally refers to orders of the Mass that were published with the approval of bishops’ conferences, for example, in the United States and Canada, rather than an editio typica of the Roman Missal itself. The changes included: use of the vernacular was permitted; the priest was allowed to face towards the congregation, if he wished, throughout Mass; there were some textual changes, such as omission of the Psalm Judica at the beginning, and of the Last Gospel and Leonine Prayers at the end. The 1967 document Tres abhinc annos, the second instruction on the implementation of the Council’s Constitution on the Liturgy, [6] made only minimal changes to the text, but simplified the rubrics and the vestments. Concelebration, and Communion under both kinds had meanwhile been permitted, [7] and, in 1968, three additional Eucharistic Prayers were authorized for use alongside the traditional Roman Canon.

By October 1967, the Consilium had produced a complete draft revision of the liturgy, and this revision was presented to the Synod of Bishops that met in Rome in that month. The bishops attended the first public celebration of the revised rite in the Sistine Chapel. When asked to vote on the new liturgy, 71 bishops voted placet (approved), 43 voted non placet (not approved) and 62 voted placet iuxta modum (approved with reservations). In response to the bishops’ concerns, some changes were made to the text.

On 25 September 1969, two retired cardinals, 79-year old Alfredo Ottaviani and 84-year-old Antonio Bacci, wrote a letter with which they sent Pope Paul VI the text of the “Short Critical Study on the New Order of Mass”, which had been prepared in the previous June by a group of twelve theologians under the direction of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. [8] The cardinals warned the New Ordinary of the Mass Mass “represented, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent.” [9] [10] The study that they transmitted said that on many points the New Mass had much to gladden the heart of even the most modernist Protestant. [11] [12] Paul VI asked the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the department of the Roman Curia that Ottaviani had earlier headed, to examine the Short Critical Study. It responded on 12 November 1969 that the document contained many affirmations that were “superficial, exaggerated, inexact, emotional and false”. [13] However, some of its observations were taken into account in preparing the definitive version of the new Ordinary of the Mass.

5. The 1970 Missal

Mass celebrated at the Grotto at Lourdes, 28 July 2006. The principal celebrant displays the chalice immediately after its consecration.

Pope Paul VI promulgated the revised rite of Mass with his Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum of 3 April 1969, setting the first Sunday of Advent at the end of that year as the date on which it would enter into force. However, the revised Missal itself was not published until the following year, and full vernacular translations appeared much later.

Missale Romanum made particular mention of the following significant changes from the previous edition of the Roman Missal:

To the single Canon of the previous edition (which, with minor alterations, was preserved as the “First Eucharistic Prayer or Roman Canon”) were added three alternative Eucharistic Prayers, and the number of prefaces was increased.

The rites of the Ordinary of the Mass (in Latin, Ordo Missae) – that is, the largely unvarying part of the liturgy – were “simplified, due care being taken to preserve their substance.” “Elements that, with the passage of time, came to be duplicated or were added with but little advantage” were eliminated, especially in the rites for the presentation of the bread and wine, the breaking of the bread, and communion.

“‘Other elements that have suffered injury through accident of history’ are restored ‘to the tradition of the Fathers’ (SC art. 50), for example, the homily (see SC art. 52), the general intercessions or prayer of the faithful (see SC art. 53), and the penitential rite or act of reconciliation with God and the community at the beginning of the Mass.” [14]

The proportion of the Bible read at Mass was greatly increased. Prior to the reforms of Pius XII (which reduced the proportions further), 1% of the Old Testament and 16.5% of the New Testament had been read at Mass. Since 1970, the equivalent proportions for Sundays and weekdays (leaving aside major feasts) have been 13.5% of the Old Testament and 71.5% of the New Testament. [4] This was made possible through an increase in the number of readings at Mass and the introduction of a three-year cycle of readings on Sundays and a two-year cycle on weekdays.

In addition to these changes, Missale Romanum noted that the revision considerably modified other sections of the Missal, such as the Proper of Seasons, the Proper of Saints, the Common of Saints, the Ritual Masses and the Votive Masses, adding that “[the] number [of the prayers] has been increased, so that the new forms might better correspond to new needs, and the text of older prayers has been restored on the basis of the ancient sources”.

6. Other changes
6. 1. Vernacular language

The Second Vatican Council stated in Sacrosanctum Concilium, 36:[5]

1. Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites.
2. But since the use of the mother tongue, whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or other parts of the liturgy, frequently may be of great advantage to the people, the limits of its employment may be extended. This will apply in the first place to the readings and directives, and to some of the prayers and chants, according to the regulations on this matter to be laid down separately in subsequent chapters.
3. These norms being observed, it is for the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned in Art. 22, 2, to decide whether, and to what extent, the vernacular language is to be used; their decrees are to be approved, that is, confirmed, by the Apostolic See. And, whenever it seems to be called for, this authority is to consult with bishops of neighboring regions which have the same language.

While this text would seem to suggest only limited use of the vernacular language, its reference to “particular law” (as opposed to universal law) and to “the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority” (the episcopal conference) entrusted to the latter the judgment on the actual extent of its use.

Bishops’ Conferences from all over the world soon voted to expand the use of the vernacular, and requested confirmation of this choice from Rome. In response, from 1964 onwards, a series of documents from Rome granted general authorization for steadily greater proportions of the Mass to be said in the vernacular. By the time the revised Missal was published in 1970, priests were no longer obliged to use Latin in any part of the Mass. Today, a very large majority of Masses are celebrated in the language of the people, though Latin is still used either occasionally or, in some places, on a regular basis. The rule on the language to be used is as follows: “Mass is celebrated either in Latin or in another language, provided that liturgical texts are used which have been approved according to the norm of law. Except in the case of celebrations of the Mass that are scheduled by the ecclesiastical authorities to take place in the language of the people, priests are always and everywhere permitted to celebrate Mass in Latin” (Redemptionis Sacramentum, 112).

The decision to authorize use of a particular vernacular language and the text of the translation to be employed must be approved by at least a two-thirds majority of the relevant Bishops’ Conference, whose decisions must be confirmed by the Holy See.
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