The Mind of the Church on the Novus Ordo

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Aug 13, 2010

In recent weeks, several severe critics, opponents and denigrators of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite have claimed that they are simply following the lead of Pope Benedict XVI when he was a cardinal, and they have cited one or more writings of Joseph Ratzinger in which he expressed criticisms of certain aspects of the implementation of the new rite. I want to emphasize that he expressed these concerns in scholarly work, and that, taken in context, it is always clear that Ratzinger as a cardinal was not ill-disposed toward the Novus Ordo. Rather, he was interested in improvements which might be made (no liturgy is perfect) and, in particular, he was opposed to the free-wheeling manner in which some ignored the rubrics when saying Mass, as we shall see.

In any case, it has been necessary to answer these critics on two counts, and it occurred to me that, in view of the apparently unending controversies over the liturgy, our users at large would be interested in what we may legitimately call the mind of the Church on the Novus Ordo. So I’ll provide my answers publicly in this space.

First, it is absolutely critical to note that the mind of the Church or even of the Pope himself cannot be determined by looking at the writings of a future pope before he became pope. A cardinal’s election as pope does not in any way validate his earlier remarks, none of which were protected in the least by the grace of his later office. To assert that the mind of the Church is known from the work of Joseph Ratzinger in, say, 1990, is no wiser than saying it can be known by his common theological opponent, Walter Kasper.

So even if some of Cardinal Ratzinger's remarks seem very negative in isolation from his entire body of work—or indeed even if it were possible to argue that his whole outlook on the Novus Ordo was negative (which was not the case)—this would tell us nothing about the mind of the Church. No, to learn the mind of the Pope (and therefore something of the mind of the Church) on such matters as the liturgy, we need to look to what the Pope has said while in office.

Second, while in office, Pope Benedict XVI has made his approval of the Novus Ordo clear. He has also made clear that his serious criticisms do not apply to the rite itself but  to the false interpretation of the Missal of Paul VI as something that requires constant experimentation and innovation, as if priests are to superimpose their own improvisations on the official liturgy and, in so doing, frequently substitute the banal for the sublime.

Benedict made these points in explaining his decision to widen the use of the Tridentine Mass (the Missal of Pope John XXIII) in his 2007 Motu Proprio, Summorum Pontificum. Readers will recall that the Pope issued an accompanying Letter to the Bishops on the Occasion of the Publication of Summorum Pontificum to explain his decision. In that letter he recounted why he wanted to expand the use of what he now called the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite and, in so doing, he deliberately responded to the fear that this expansion was somehow intended to demote the Novus Ordo or undermine the Second Vatican Council’s call for liturgical reform.

Let us listen to Joseph Ratzinger as Pope:

This fear is unfounded. In this regard, it must first be said 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.

Benedict went on to explain that many have continued to long for the older liturgy (which is one reason for making it more widely available, the other being to try to reconcile those who have fallen out of full communion with the Church over it), but he also explained what the real problem was:

Many people who clearly accepted the binding character of the Second Vatican Council, and were faithful to the Pope and the Bishops, nonetheless also desired to recover the form of the sacred liturgy that was dear to them. This occurred above all because in many places celebrations were not faithful to the prescriptions of the new Missal, but the latter actually was understood as authorizing or even requiring creativity, which frequently led to deformations of the liturgy which were hard to bear. [emphasis added]

Finally, the Pope ended his discussion of the Novus Ordo by stating that the key to its use in unifying the Church is a reverent fidelity to the actual rubrics of the missal itself, and he closed by expressing his fundamental judgment of the value of this normal form of the rite:

The most sure guarantee that the Missal of Paul VI can unite parish communities and be loved by them consists in its being celebrated with great reverence in harmony with the liturgical directives. This will bring out the spiritual richness and the theological depth of this Missal.

My advice to those who seriously dislike the Novus Ordo is this: Admit your personal preference for the Extraordinary Form if you like; true Catholics should not criticize you for it, even if they prefer the Ordinary Form. Combat abuses of the Novus Ordo where you can; the Church will thank you for that. But do not denigrate the rite itself, as if it is something unworthy or profane, and never imply that the billion Catholics who use and have come to love it are somehow inferior in their Faith.

It is possible to debate the merits and demerits of any liturgy, but it is not possible to cite either Pope Benedict XVI or the mind of the Church as being anything less than in favor of the prescribed use of the ordinary form of the Roman Rite. Finally, no approved liturgy of the Church should ever be treated with disrespect, nor its adherents stigmatized if they are not disobedient, for it is a sacred thing.