Mass of Paul VI

Schools Relations with: The Mass of Paul VI, also known as the Ordinary Form or Novus Ordo,[1] is the most commonly used liturgy in the Catholic Church.

It largely displaced the Tridentine Mass, the latest edition of which had been published in 1962 under the title Missale Romanum ex decreto SS.

In his letter to bishops which accompanied his 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVI wrote that "the Missal published by Paul VI and then republished in two subsequent editions by John Paul II, obviously is and continues to be the normal Form – the Forma ordinaria – of the Eucharistic Liturgy.

[5] Pope Francis further emphasized the importance of the Ordinary Form in this capacity with his 2021 motu proprio Traditionis custodes, referring to it as "the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.

"[7] The current official text in Latin is that in the third typical edition of the Roman Missal, published in 2002 and reprinted with corrections and updating in 2008.

[9] The Liturgical Movement of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which arose from the work of Dom Prosper Guéranger, a former abbot 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.

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.

[11]Sacrosanctum Concilium further provided that (amongst other things) a greater use of the Scriptures should be made at Mass, communion under both kinds for the laity (under limited circumstances), and that vernacular languages should be more widely employed (while retaining the use of Latin),[12] a declaration whose implementation made the Second Vatican Council "a milestone for Catholic, Protestants, [and] the Orthodox".

[13] 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 Sacred 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[14] made significant changes to the existing liturgy.

The 1967 document Tres abhinc annos, the second instruction on the implementation of the Council's Constitution on the Liturgy,[15] made only minimal changes to the text, but simplified the rubrics and the vestments.

[18] 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".

[20][21] 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.

[24] 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.

[25] The revisions called for by Vatican II were guided by historical and Biblical studies that were not available at the Council of Trent when the rite was fixed to forestall any heretical accretions.

[26] Missale Romanum made particular mention of the following significant changes from the previous edition of the Roman Missal: In his 1962 apostolic constitution Veterum sapientia on the teaching of Latin, Pope John XXIII spoke of that language as the one the church uses: "The Catholic Church has a dignity far surpassing that of every merely human society, for it was founded by Christ the Lord.

[31] After Sacrosanctum concilium, between the years 1963 and 1968 there were private initiatives by liberal reformers to either revise the Roman Canon, or to create new Eucharistic Prayers.

[31] In addition, the Bishops' Conference of the Netherlands under Johannes Bluyssen, around 1965–1966, did not wait for the Canon to be permitted in the vernacular and started experimenting with their own translations and adding new "Eucharistic Prayers", then asking for permission from Rome to do so after the fact, causing political pressure.

[31] Benedictine member of the Consilium Cipriano Vagaggini, while noting what he called the Roman Canon's "undeniable defects", concluded that its suppression was unthinkable; he proposed that it be retained but that two further Eucharistic Prayers be added.

[35] The Tridentine Missal speaks of celebrating versus populum,[a] and gives corresponding instructions for the priest when performing actions that in the other orientation involved turning around in order to face the people.

[41] In its guidelines for the arrangement of churches, the current Roman Missal directs: "The altar should be built apart from the wall, in such a way that it is possible to walk around it easily and that Mass can be celebrated at it facing the people, which is desirable wherever possible."

"[42] A 2000 statement by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments stated that "There is no preference expressed in the liturgical legislation for either position.

[68] Pope 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.

"[5] The Society of Saint Pius X has argued that the promulgation of the revised liturgy was legally invalid due to alleged technical deficiencies in the wording of Missale Romanum.

[76] In 2002 the leadership of the ICEL was changed, under insistence from the Roman Congregation for Divine Worship and to obtain a translation that was as close as possible to the wording of the Latin original.

In spite of push-back by some in the church,[77] Rome prevailed and nine years later a new English translation, closer to that of the Latin and consequently approved by the Holy See, was adopted by English-speaking episcopal conferences.

However, the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference (Botswana, South Africa, Swaziland) put into effect the changes in the people's parts of the revised English translation of the Order of Mass[78] from 28 November 2008, when the Missal as a whole was not yet available.