Did You think the Council Fathers Created the Novus Ordo? Think Again!

Father Terrence Keehan, pastor of Holy Family Catholic Church in Inverness, Illinois, uses a guitar to give the final blessing at a Mass livestreamed on Feb. 13. (photo: Screenshot of YouTube video / Screenshot of YouTube video via CNA)

From Les Femmes – The Truth:

Have you ever read the Vatican II (VII) documents on the sacraments, beginning with the Constitution on the Liturgy, Sacrosantum Concilium (SC published December 4, 1963)? It outlined the guidelines to be followed in revising the mass. The Novus Ordo (NO) did not spring up like the Phoenix as the council ended; it was the product of a committee with its major architect Annibale Bugnini who wanted to eliminate anything that could possibly be a stumbling block to Protestants. 

The council fathers provided the general “principles and norms which can and should be applied…to the Roman rite.” They did not develop or design the NO which cannot accurately be called the Mass of Vatican II. It is anything but! Every Catholic should read the Constitution to realize the bait and switch fraud perpetrated on pewsitters by Bugnini and his cohorts. 

So…what did the Council Fathers say?

First of all they pointed out that the “liturgy is made up of unchangeable elements divinely instituted, and of elements subject to change…In this restoration both texts and rites should be drawn up so as to express more clearly the holy things which they signify.”

“Holy Things?”

They went on with general norms of which I’ll emphasize a few:

1. Regulation of the liturgy belongs to the authority of the Church, the Apostolic See and, according to Church law [and] the bishops…”Therefore no other person, not even a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority.”

2. “[T]here must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them, and care must be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing.”

3. “The use of the Latin language…is to be preserved in the Latin rites.” The vernacular “may” be more widely used “especially in readings, directives and in some prayers and chants.”

4. “[C]are must be taken to ensure that the faithful may also be able to say or sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them.”

5. “The treasury of sacred music is to be preserved and cultivated with great care…The Church reognizes Gregorian chant as being specially suited to the Roman liturgy. Therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.”

There’s plenty more, but this smattering indicates just how little attention Bugnini and company gave to the council fathers’ instructions before they proceeded to wreck the mass!

As Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict) wrote in a 1976 letter:

The way in which the new Missal was introduced departs from previous ecclesiastical legal customs, such as those observed by Pius V in his missal reform…. The problem of the new Missal lies in the fact that it breaks away from this continuous history, which has always gone on before and after Pius V, and creates a thoroughly new book (albeit from old material), the appearance of which is accompanied by a type of prohibition of what has gone before that is quite unheard-of in the history of ecclesiastical law and liturgy. I can say with certainty from my knowledge of the Council debate and from rereading the speeches of the Council Fathers delivered at that time that this was not intended [by them].

Got that? The NO was not an organic development of doctrine as the mass-wreckers so often claim. It “breaks away from the continuous history…and creates a thoroughly new book… accompanied by a type of prohibition of what has gone before that is quite unheard-of in the history of ecclesiastical law and liturgy.”

And the Council Fathers had no intention of creating what became a stage open to rampant liturgical abuse to the point where a priest would bless people with a guitar and wear a clown nose or clown wig to offer the liturgy. Are these “innovations” that contribute to the “good of the Church?”

More on Vatican II coming! See how some of the council fathers, besides Cardinal Ratzinger, reacted when the new mass was sprung on them. They were not happy. So why did so many go along with it and do so little to suppress the abuses? And why do they continue to allow liturgical abuse today?

Good questions!

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