So SAD: (Sorrowful And Destructive)

40 years of Missale Romanum and the new Roman Rite



Forty years ago today, the First Sunday of Advent, one of the weakest Popes in Church history, Paul VI, mandated the Novus Ordo Missae (New Order of Mass) in the Roman Rite. After almost 1,500 years of the Traditional Latin Mass, the same Mass that had conquered entire continents for Christ and had lifted thousands of men and women to the altar as saints, Pope Paul saddled us with this.

What was the reaction of the Roman Catholic world, who had never asked for a change in their Mass in the first place? Millions left the Church, vocations hit rock bottom, and belief in almost every Catholic doctrine, most especially the Eucharist, hit (and remains at) an all time low. Well done!

There are many (especially amongst my friends) who will defend the novelty of the New Mass to the day they die. I, on the other hand, look at the destruction it left in its wake, and wonder….how did we ever allow this to happen?

Martin Luther, wherever he may be, is still laughing.
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40 years of Missale Romanum and the new Roman Rite - II: a Requiem, by Paul VI

On the First Sunday of Advent (November 30), 1969, the New Missal entered into force officially (it would take a few years before it was to be completely phased in worldwide).

In his words in the General Audience which immediately preceded that date, Pope Paul VI was clear:
We may notice that pious persons will be the ones most disturbed, because, having their respectable way of listening to Mass, they will feel distracted from their customary thoughts and forced to follow those of others.
...
Not Latin, but the spoken language, will be the main language of the Mass. To those who know the beauty, the power, the expressive sacrality of Latin, its replacement by the vulgar language is a great sacrifice: we lose the discourse of the Christian centuries, we become almost intruders and desecrators [intrusi e profani] in the literary space of sacred expression, and we will thus lose a great portion of that stupendous and incomparable artistic and spiritual fact that is the Gregorian Chant. We will thus have, indeed, reason for being sad, and almost for feeling lost: with what will we replace this angelic language? It is a sacrifice of inestimable price.
posted by PreVat2