• In the liturgy, every word and every gesture conveys a theological idea.

    — Archbishop Ferdinando Antonelli
    Signatory to the 1969 Decree
    promulgating the Mass of Paul VI

ICEL Mistranslations: Who’s to Blame?

By frcekada | Published: September 29, 2010

AN ARTICLE in a recent issue of The Wanderer resurrected the old accusation, often heard in the 1960s and 1970s, that ICEL (the International Committee for English in the Liturgy), bore almost exclusive responsibility for the post-Vatican II mistranslations of the Mass of Paul VI. English-speaking Catholics, we were repeatedly told, never had the opportunity to assist at the real Mass of Paul VI, because the wicked modernists in ICEL had manipulated the English translation in such a way as to undermine what our beloved Holy Father had intended for the new rite.

Il pesce puzza…

The following is a letter to the Editor that I wrote in response to the article.

*     *     *     *     *

Paul Likoudis’s “Liturgy Wars are Over” (The Wanderer, September 16, 2010, p. 4) brought back memories of the anger and outrage we conservatives felt during the ‘60s and ‘70s when ICEL shoved their mistranslations and kindergarten style down the throats of the English-speaking Catholics everywhere. Their work was a particular trial for those of us church musicians who still believed in maintaining a sacred style for music at Catholic worship.

Mr. Likoudis, however, leaves the impression that blame for those mistranslations is to be laid almost exclusively at the feet of ICEL. Most of us certainly believed this during those years after the Council, and we undertook various initiatives to bring the problem to the attention of those who would surely correct it — “If the Pope only knew about this deception,” etc. etc.

However, now that so much documentation about the history of the liturgical reform has become readily available, and so many members of Consilium have written their own accounts about their work, it is clear that ICEL was merely putting into practice principles enunciated in various Roman documents.

Three documents from Consilium (Inter Oecumenici, 1964; “Conventus de Popularibus Interpretationibus Textuum Liturgicorum,” 1965; Aussitôt après, 1967) progressively allowed translators more and more freedom to “adapt” translations.

The final blow to any pretense of accuracy came with the Roman Instruction Comme le Prévoit (25 January 1969). This document (denounced several years ago in The Wanderer, if memory serves) laid down the general principles that would produce the distortions, omissions and outright errors we conservatives complained about in the ICEL translations.

Its probably author, Father Antoine Dumas, wrote a commentary on Comme le Prévoit the following year. (Notitiae 6, 194-213) Here, he amplified the principles laid down in such a way as to further the modernist theological agenda of removing from translations “negative” theology and allusions to doctrines that Protestants could find offensive. (Thus “victim” would disappear from the translation of the Eucharistic Prayer 1.)

Nor, it appears, could one maintain that ICEL and Consilium were operating a cabal (as some of us thought) “to frustrate the will of the Holy Father.”

The real blame, it turns out, rested with Paul VI himself. He carefully examined both the French and Italian drafts of Comme le prévoit; he made 47 notations on the draft in his own handwriting; he made changes both in its style and substance, and he even corrected the printer’s page-proofs. (See Bugnini, La Riforma, 236-7)

So, the awful ICEL mistranslations, it seems, were nothing more than an implementation of official policy handed down from the top.

*     *     *     *     *

Readers can find a more detailed discussion of this issue, including citations, in Chapter 4 of Work of Human Hands.

So, ICEL should not be made the whipping boy for the awful post-Vatican II mistranslations. Ultimately Paul VI laid down the principles that ICEL followed.

If the translations stank, it was because (as the Italians say) Il pesce puzza dalla testa — the fish rots from the head.

Posted in 04 Latin to the Vernacular, WHH Chapter Topics | Comments closed

An Important Article on the 1951–1956 Holy Week Reform Appears

By frcekada | Published: July 27, 2010

THE Rorate Caeli blog recently posted a translation of The Reform of Holy Week in the Years 1951-1956, an excellent and detailed study of the Pius XII Holy Week rites, written by Fr. Stefano Carusi.

As we noted in Chapter 3 of Work of Human Hands, these rites constituted the third stage in a process of liturgical change that eventually culminated in the New Mass.

Fr. Carusi makes extensive use of a commentary by Fr. Carlo Braga, who assisted Fr. Annibale Bugnini in formulating both the new 1951–1956 Holy Week reform and the 1969 Novus Ordo Missae. The following is from Fr. Carusi’s concluding comments:

The entire raison d’être of the reform seems to be permeated with the whiff of rationalism and archeologism, with at times dollops of pure imagination…

According to Father Carlo Braga, this reform was the “head of the battering-ram” which broke into the Roman liturgy for the holiest days of the year. Something so revolutionary was bound to have repercussions on the entire subsequent spirit of the liturgy.

The whole article is worth careful reading and study. It brought to light a number of details in the new rite that had been missed even by long-time critics of the rites like me.

Everyone owes a debt of gratitude to Fr. Carusi and Mr. Palad of Rorate for making this work available.

It is worth noting that Fr. Carusi is a member of the IBP (Institute of the Good Shepherd), a Vatican-approved  society for priests (mostly former SSPX-ers) who offer the traditional Latin Mass under the banner of Benedict XVI’s 2007 Motu Proprio — which, in theory at least, prescribes the use of the John XXIII Missal that contains the very rites Fr. Carusi criticizes.

It is significant that even in these circles many are now examining the pre-Vatican II liturgical changes with a critical eye, an undertaking previously regarded as exclusively “sedevacantist” territory.

Inevitably another issue came up during the discussion of Fr. Carusi’s article. Various members of the anti-sedevacantist camp maintain that it is inconsistent to reject the Holy Week rites promulgated by Pius XII, whom sedevacantists regard as a true pope, while maintaining that the New Mass promulgated by Paul VI is part of the proof that he was a false pope.

It will be useful here for me to restate my position on this matter.

Taken individually, none of the changes introduced in 1951–1956 Holy Week rites (I offer a summary in Work of Human Hands, 68–69) was evil in itself.

But fifty years later, we recognize that these precedents and the principles behind them were the foot in the door to the eventual destruction of the Mass. Bugnini, after all, told us that the changes were just one stage in the process of a wholesale liturgical reform — a “bridge,” he said, to “a new city.” (See WHH, 61)

In the very document promulgating the Novus Ordo, moreover, Paul VI himself points to the Pius XII legislation as the starting point for the creation of the New Mass. (See WHH, 49)

If the rites were not evil in themselves, on what basis could one now criticize them or refuse to follow them?

The answer is to be found in the general principles of canon law. Canonists and moral theologians (e.g., Cocchi, Michels, Noldin, Wernz-Vidal, Vermeersch, Regatillo, Zalba) commonly teach that a human ecclesiastical law can become harmful (nociva, noxia) due to changed circumstances after the passage of time. In such a case it automatically ceases to bind.

This, I contend, is exactly the case with the 1951–1956 Holy Week rites.

One cannot therefore maintain that the application of this principle (cessation of law) to the Holy Week changes contradicts the teaching of dogmatic theology that the Church is infallible when she promulgates universal disciplinary laws.

On this point, therefore, there is no inconsistency whatsoever in the sedevacantist position.

Posted in 03 Liturgical Changes 1948–1969, 15 Which Missal to Use?, WHH Chapter Topics | Comments closed

The New Lectionary and Hell (Short Form)

By frcekada | Published: June 26, 2010

A PREVIOUS post, The Novus Ordo and Corpus Christi “Lite,” noted that the new lectionary (cycle of scripture readings) for the Mass of Paul VI omitted a scripture passage which appeared in the old Missal, apparently because the passage was at odds with various tenets of modernist theology.

Missing something?

Needless to say, the reformers couldn’t  possibly have omitted every such passage from the lectionary, otherwise there would have been little left to read. How, then, did they proceed? The Introduction to the new lectionary lays down the principles:

• Scripture passages that are “truly difficult,” which present “serious literary, critical or exegetical problems” or which the faithful “may find too difficult to understand” are not employed on Sundays.

• In certain passages appointed to be read to the people, individual verses have occasionally been omitted, since they were deemed to be “of little pastoral worth, or involving truly difficult questions.”

• In some cases, individual verses in a reading are optional; in others, an entirely different reading may be substituted. “Pastoral reasons” and the ability of the people “to understand difficult texts correctly” will determine which option the priest chooses.  (See Work of Human Hands, 265)

One such “difficult” passage occurs in the Gospel in the traditional Missal for tomorrow, the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost:

At that time Jesus said to His disciples: Except your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said to them of old: Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill, shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say to you, that whosoever is angry with his brother, shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say to his brother: Raca, shall be in danger of the council; and whosoever shall say: Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. If therefore thou offer thy gift at the altar, and there thou remember that thy brother hath anything against thee, leave there thy offering before the altar, and go first to be reconciled to thy brother; and then coming thou shalt offer thy gift. (Mt 5:20–25)

The difficult bit for the modernist, of course, is the line in bold: “whosoever shall say: Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.”

Thus, while the passage we have quoted above does indeed appear in the new lectionary for the Sixth Sunday of the Year in Year A (Lectionary §77), it is in a “long form” of the reading, for which an alternate and optional “short form” is provided. The latter omits the offending phrase.

So, take your pick: the hell or the non-hell option.

This is but one example in the new lectionary of how the men who promised us “more scripture” gave us less of its message. For other examples, see Work of Human Hands, 265–72.

The fate of Postcommunion prayer in the traditional Missal for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost is also of interest:

Grant, O Lord, we beseech Thee, that we whom Thou hast fed with the heavenly Gift, may be cleansed from our hidden sins and delivered from the snares of our enemies.

More “negative” theology — and even worse, the last few words could be construed as referring to the devil!

So, in the Missal of Paul VI the prayer has been entirely suppressed.

Lex orandi, lex credendi.

Posted in 09 Revised Orations, 10 Liturgy of the Word, WHH Chapter Topics | Comments closed

Eternal Things: No Loss?

By frcekada | Published: June 12, 2010

IN A previous post, The World, the Sacred Heart and the New Mass, I noted how the old Postcommunion for the Feast of the Sacred was changed in the Missal of Paul VI in order to accommodate modernist theology on the world and earthly things.

Many of the changes in the Propers of the new Missal reflect this “new view of human values,” as Bugnini’s assistant, Carlo Braga called it. (See Work of Human Hands, 223). For the most part, such changes went unnoticed in traditionalist critiques of the reformed rite. But in the liturgy, the little stuff starts to add up.

In the Sunday orations in particular, the reformers routinely abolished or rewrote texts containing ideas that “contemporary man” (i.e., godless, secular man) finds disturbing. One such example is the tomorrow’s Collect for the Sunday within the Octave of Sacred Heart (Pentecost III), which was “sanitized” of unpleasant implications and then put to use in the new Missal’s 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Both the old and the revised texts begin the same way:

O God, the protector of those who hope in Thee,

without whom nothing is strong, nothing holy,

increase Thy mercy towards us;

that with Thee as ruler and guide,

The old text then continues:

we may so pass through the good things of time

that we may not lose the good things of eternity.

In the Missal of Paul VI — the Latin version, please note — this passage was was revised as follows:

we may now so use transient things

that we may cling to those things which endure.

The allusion to the possibility of damnation — the loss of heaven through the misuse of temporal things — has disap­peared. In its place is clinging to “things which en­dure,” a vague, though infinitely more positive notion. (See WHH, 228)

If even such a discreet mention of hell had to go, a fortiori the other more direct references in the collects of the traditional Missal had to disappear as well: everlasting death, eternal punishment, the pains of hell, its fire, etc. (See WHH, 227–8)

Contemporary man does not make hell part of his “new perspectives” — and the Missal of Paul VI is happy to oblige him.

“Hermeneutic of continuity”? Don’t believe it.

Lex orandi, lex credendi.

Posted in 09 Revised Orations, WHH Chapter Topics | Comments closed

Msgr. Marini and “Richness”

By frcekada | Published: June 10, 2010

ONE OF the stars in the firmament for those who see Benedict XVI as a great restorer of traditional liturgical practices is Msgr. Guido Marini, Pontifical Master of Liturgical Ceremonies. (Pictured below.)

Msgr. Marini, appointed to his post in October 2007, is credited with giving Vatican ceremonies a more traditional look and feel. The spectacularly ugly modern liturgical furnishings used during the days of Paul VI and John Paul II (the dreary, plain chasubles, the bare high altar, the modern “twisted lizard” crucifix) have given way to Baroque miters, elaborate papal thrones, lace cottas, Renaissance altar frontals and embroidered dalmatics. The ceremonial for Masses celebrated in St. Peter’s is now far more elaborate and the tone for everything far more “traditional.”

This shift reflects not merely Msgr. Marini’s ideas on the liturgy, of course, but also those of Benedict XVI, a man of high culture and refined aesthetic sensibilities, who has long lamented many of the developments in the liturgy that occurred after Vatican II.

In January 2010, Msgr. Marini delivered a lengthy address criticizing the effects of the post-Vatican II liturgical reforms. His remarks seemed particularly significant, because one sensed in them an at least implicit awareness that the official reforms themselves — and not merely their application — caused some of the problems he described.

But the solution Msgr. Marini proposes is applying a “hermeneutic of continuity” to the liturgical reform — to maintain that there is no substantial difference between the old liturgy and the new liturgy. “Hermeneutic of continuity” is the buzz phrase, of course, that Benedict XVI uses for his broader theory that Vatican II represented no break at all with previous teaching, but merely continued and developed it.

In a recent interview, Msgr. Marini explained how this notion applies to the liturgy:

The hermeneutic of continuity highlights that in the life of the Church there is an authentic growth in the way in which they do not cut the roots, so that this development includes the richness of its history and tradition.

The phrase “richness of history and tradition” has profound appeal for traditionalists who reject the New Mass and the entire liturgical reform.

But lack of “richness” in the reformed rites is merely a symptom, not a cause. The latter must be sought in doctrinal basis for the Novus Ordo: ecumenism and modernism. The reform did in fact “cut at the roots,” so no hermeneutic of continuity is possible.

The Missal of Paul VI, for instance, contains only 36% of the orations found in the traditional Missal, and of these over half were changed, thus leaving a bare 17% of the prayers as they were before. And these changes and omissions affected the doctrinal content of the prayers. (See Work of Human Hands, 224–45)

In the face of these and countless other details in the New Mass, it is therefore impossible to speak of “continuity” on the doctrinal level.

So, overlaying this rite with lots of the ornate pre-Vatican II externals may look like “richness.” But it is mere camouflage for the doctrinal bankruptcy that lies beneath.

Lex orandi, lex credendi.

Posted in 01 Old Mass or New Mass, 14 Conclusions, WHH Chapter Topics | Comments closed

The World, the Sacred Heart and the New Mass

By frcekada | Published: June 8, 2010

A PRIEST who offers the traditional Latin Mass soon becomes very familiar with the Propers for the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The feast itself falls on the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi, but the Missal prescribes the same texts for the Votive Mass of the Sacred Heart which is offered on First Fridays.

In the Postcommunion, the following phrase appears:

… having tasted the sweetness of Thy most dear Heart, may we learn to despise earthly things and love those of heaven.

The phrase in bold, “to despise earthly things” (terrena despicere), is one that recurs frequently in the orations that the old Missal prescribes for various feasts and observances throughout the liturgical year.

The expression reflects the teaching that there will always be a conflict between the Christian and the world. It is founded in Scripture (“Whosoever, therefore, will be the friend of the world,” says St. James, “becometh an en­emy of God”) and echoed in the writings of countless theologians, ascetics and saints throughout the ages. The traditional liturgy, therefore, points to this disdain for earthly things as something singularly virtuous.

Not so the new liturgy. The Missal of Paul VI excised this idea not only from the Mass of the Sacred Heart, but also from the many other prayers in the Missal where it formerly appeared, for example, from orations for the Second Sunday of Advent, and for the feasts of St. Peter Damian, St. Cajetan, St. Angela Merici, St. Casimir, St. Paulinus of Nola, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Hedwig, and St. Henry. (See Work of Human Hands, 231–4.)

The creators of the New Mass said that this change in the “doctrinal reality” that the prayers expressed reflected “the new view of human values” proposed by Vatican II (WHH, 223), and was “dictated by the new theology.” (WHH, 300)

Those of us who endured the post-Vatican II liturgical revolution recall the assurances that the liturgical changes in fact represented a “return to the sources” (ressourcement) or a restoration of  the spirit of the early Church. So, did the reformers then “restore” prayers from older liturgical sources that were more “positive” about the world?

Alas, no. A Secret from the old Leonine Sacramentary, for instance, contained the petition that we “be purified from the [moral] infections of the world.” But the man of today, said one of the revisers, believes that earthly reality is fundamentally sacred; the phrase would appear “severe” and would “collide with modern sensibilities.” Hence the petition in the “restored prayer” that appears in the Missal of Paul VI now merely asks that we “be freed from the allurements of the world.”  (WHH, 300–1)

Even some scripture texts were considered too much. The new Lectionary makes optional St. Paul’s condemnation of the “enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly, and whose glory is their shame,” and of those “who mind earthly things.” (Formerly, it was read on Pentecost XXIII.)

And the Lectionary permits a substitute reading for the passage containing Our Lord’s words: “He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal.” (See WHH, 269)

And so it goes countless times in the New Mass. The differences between the old and the new rites run far deeper than atmosphere, “tradition” and “a sacrality which attracts.”

The Novus Ordo does indeed, as its creators stated, reflect a new “doctrinal reality.” And  it is for that reason that the faithful Catholic must reject it.

Lex orandi, lex credendi — the law of praying is the law of believing.

TALKS: I will be giving talks and signing copies of Work of Human Hands in Brooksville FL (June 16), Northeast Detroit (June 18) and Southwest Detroit (June 19).

Posted in 09 Revised Orations, 10 Liturgy of the Word, WHH Chapter Topics | Comments closed

“Re-Catholicizing” the New Mass?

By frcekada | Published: June 5, 2010

AS I NOTED in the opening pages of Work of Human Hands, one factor that led me to begin working on the book once again in November 2008 was the increasing interest that the younger generation of post-Vatican II clergy was beginning to take in traditional Catholic liturgical practices.

This enthusiasm for the old was especially evident on one internet site that I began to follow regularly, New Liturgical Movement.

NLM regularly posts spectacular photos of traditional liturgical ceremonies in the old rite, offered in accord with the provisions of Benedict XVI’s Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, as well as photos of the Novus Ordo celebrated with various traditional trimmings (old-style vestments, priests with birettas, the Eucharistic Prayer “facing East,” etc.) These are accompanied by articles on traditional church architecture, sacred music, sacred art, and the liturgical year, not to mention striking ads from purveyors of old fashioned liturgical fittings.

The June 5, 2010 NLM featured an article by Fr. Thomas Kocik, The Reform of the Reform? Not Yet. The reform in question is the one discussed in Fr. Kocik’s The Reform of the Reform? A Liturgical Debate, a 2003 book that floated various suggestions for “improving” the New Mass along more traditional lines.

In his recent article, Fr. Kocik offered a two-fold distinction for these proposals, both of which, he says, aim to improve “the deficiencies of the earlier reform.”

(1) “Reform of the reform,” which advocates reformulating the Mass of Paul VI more along the lines of the 1962 Missal of John XXIII, the last version of the old Mass in force before the introduction of the post-Vatican II changes.

(2) “Re-catholicization of the reform,” which is not interested so much in rewriting the liturgical books for the Mass of Paul VI in a traditional direction, but rather

in celebrating the revised liturgy in a manner which makes it more expressive of liturgical tradition and which highlights the transcendent character and sacred ethos of Catholic worship.

The latter term I found particularly striking: “re-catholicization.” The implication, obviously, is that the Mass of Paul VI is DE-catholicized.

By this Fr. Kocik seems to mean only that the new rite lacks a certain “atmosphere” that the old rite possessed, and that for the time being, this can be regained by tweaking some of the externals of the Novus Ordo.

The atmospheric shortcomings of the New Mass that clergy like Fr. Kocik lament, however, are merely symptoms of the underlying doctrinal problem behind the new rite.

The shift to Mass facing the people, for instance, represents more than just doing away with “transcendent character and sacred ethos.” It replaced what one of the creators of the New Order of  Mass, Fr. Martin Patino, called the theocentric (God-centered) theology of the Mass with a new anthropocentric (man-centered) theological emphasis. (See Work of Human Hands, 168-9)

Such a shift was quite deliberate. And turning the theological underpinnings of a rite from God to man, of course, is bound to affect transcendence.

One hopes that younger clergy such as Fr. Kocik who are put off by so many aspects of the new rite will one day discover the true cause for their discomfort — the ecumenical and modernist theology that affected countless features of the new rite, both large and small.

Posted in 01 Old Mass or New Mass, 14 Conclusions, WHH Chapter Topics | Comments closed

The Novus Ordo and Corpus Christi “Lite”

By frcekada | Published: June 3, 2010

A NUMBER of details in the Feast of Corpus Christi in the Missal of Paul VI— which rebranded  the feast as “The Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ — betray the modernist doctrinal presuppositions behind the New Mass. It’s worth mentioning a few, since today is the Feast of Corpus Christi.

(1) The Optional Sequence. St. Thomas Aquinas’s magnificent Eucharistic poem Lauda Sion, which was sung or recited before the Gospel, is now optional.

This reflects not only the modernists’ desire to shorten the liturgy wherever possible, but also their theory that the only true participation in the liturgy is vocal participation. Silent contemplation of a text as it is recited or sung doesn’t cut it.

Since the melody of the Lauda Sion is melodically complex and requires a wide vocal range (an octave and a fifth), participation by the celebrating assembly is rendered impossible. So, it can be skipped.

(2) The Expurgated Epistle. From the passage in 1 Corinthians that the old Missal prescribed for the feast, the reformers removed St. Paul’s warning to those who would receive the Eucharist unworthily:

Therefore whosoever shall eat this bread or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself; and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that chalice. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgement to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord. (1 Cor 11:27-29.)

This, of course, is what the modernists would characterize as “negative theology” — judgement and condemnation. Moreover, it contradicts the assembly supper theology behind the New Mass. (Everyone must eat.) So even though St. Paul said it, it had to go.

The removal of the passage was intentional, because it was also removed from the Epistle for Holy Thursday.

The Sequence likewise, by the way, contains “negative theology,” which was an additional reason for making it optional.

The good and the evil eat of it, but the outcome is different — life or death.

Death for the wicked, life for the good. See how one food gives a different end!

(3) The Abolished Communion Chant. The lengthy Communion chant in the old missal, Quotiescumque, was based on the same passage in Corinthians, and ended with:

For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgement to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord.

Again, more “negative theology,” So, the revisers simply replaced the Communion chant in its entirety with:

He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him, says the Lord. (Jn 6:57)

Much more positive than gloomy old St. Paul!

And all this, of course, from the men who promised us a “more scriptural” liturgy.

(For a discussion of the elimination of “negative theology” from the Mass of Paul VI, by the way, see Work of Human Hands 224–31 and 266ff.)

Posted in 09 Revised Orations, 10 Liturgy of the Word, WHH Chapter Topics | Comments closed

Philothea Press Releases ‘Work of Human Hands’

By frcekada | Published: May 27, 2010

ON MAY 30, 2010, Philothea Press will officially release Father Anthony Cekada’s new book, Work of Human Hands: A Theological Critique of the Mass of Paul VI, a study of the post-Vatican II rite of Mass promulgated in 1969 by Paul VI.

The 468-page book, the product of nearly three decades of research, uncovers and analyzes in detail the fundamental differences in doctrine between the new rite of the Mass and the old rite that it replaced.

Sample excerpts from the book, including the table of contents and the 18-page index, can be viewed on the Philothea site at the following link

Philothea also plans to post a series of podcasts by Father Cekada that will provide an overview of contents of the book.

Posted in 00 Preface, WHH Chapter Topics | Comments closed

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