The Holy See asks us to follow the liturgical calendar currently in force in the Universal Church for the Roman rite [i.e., the Novus Ordo calendar]; it also asks that in our various houses, Mass be celebrated according to the Novus Ordo one week of the a month, with the exception of Sundays, while the Vetus Ordo remains in use for the other three weeks and every Sunday. It specifies that the Mass readings for each day will be those of the current Roman lectionary, and that all the prefaces of the Paul VI Missal will be used for Masses according to the Vetus Ordo. [1]
The Vatican here targets a vulnerable community of nuns, heavily reliant on the outside support of priests [2] , in order to run an experiment that it would like, if possible, to extend to all TLM institutes, such as the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, the Institute of the Good Shepherd, the Fraternity of St. Vincent Ferrer, the Fontgombault monasteries, and so forth: namely, not to suppress the old rite, but to hybridize it with the Novus Ordo. Thus, the diktat might be issued that the old Ordo Missae may be retained, but the Novus Ordo calendar, lectionary, and prefaces must be used at all times, instead of the ones proper to the classical Roman rite.
This idea is hardly a new one. In fact, Traditionis Custodes already seems to have envisaged it in the following passage: “In these celebrations the readings are proclaimed in the vernacular language, using translations of the Sacred Scripture approved for liturgical use by the respective Episcopal Conferences.” The obvious sense of these words is that the new lectionary was to be imposed on TLM communities. Yet the motu proprio was so badly written, so clumsily revised, and so hugely controversial from the first moment, that this provision was basically ignored by nearly everyone (and rightly so: see here, here, and here).
This deconstruction by hybridization, and the resulting fractures in unity it would bring about in the traditionalist movement, would be the next and more subtle strategy for officials who have realized they cannot achieve direct and total abolition of the old rite. If you can’t beat them, why not assimilate them in some fashion?
Such moves would, of course, undermine the integrity of the rite and make it a hodge-podge. As Joseph Shaw is especially good at explaining (see this pamphlet and this book), the old rite and the new rite each has its own “design principles,” if one may use that expression. Each is consistent from start to finish at pursuing certain goals with certain means. In the old rite, the inflexibility of the rubrics, the separation of priest from people, the use of a hieratic language, the frequent periods of silent prayer, the exclusive use of the Roman Canon, the fixed, limited, and repeated texts, etc., form a phenomenological and theological unity. In the new rite, the compact order of celebration, the interaction with the people, the verbalization of nearly everything, the options, the looser movements, the ample portions of Scripture, the clerically controlled silences, the vernacular extroversion, and so forth, also form a phenomenological and theological unity.
I think that clergy and laity who are familiar with the two rites are well aware of the many profound differences between them. While the new rite presents itself as an assemblage of modules, which can be explained both by the manner of its genesis and by the intention of situational adaptability, the old rite is most definitely nothing of the sort, and it cannot be treated as if it were a lego-brick toy in which one can swap out some blue pieces for some yellow pieces.
Indeed, almost every proposal for “improving” the old rite either rests on questionable antiquarian premises or betrays a faulty understanding of how the old rite works. (See my article “The Liturgical Rollercoaster: A Recent Proposal for 14 ‘Improvements’ to the TLM.”)
Anyone who knows about the hundreds of obvious and subtle differences between the old and new calendars will see immediately that combining the old rite with the new calendar is a non-starter. For one thing, the hagiocentricity so characteristic of the old rite will be instantly compromised. For another, the symbolic and numerological patterns that fill the old calendar will be lost without a trace.
Of all the changes, the one that is most alarming is the forcing of the new lectionary into the old rite. This is a topic I have extensively researched and written about. For convenience, I will list here the main articles in which I have sought to articulate the profound rationale for the first-millenium lectionary and to point out the new lectionary’s numerous flaws:
- A Systematic Critique of the New Lectionary, On the Occasion of Its Fiftieth Anniversary
- Mythbusting: Why the TLM’s Lectionary Is Superior to the New Lectionary (this talk overlaps to an extent with the preceding)
- Not Just More Scripture, But Different Scripture—Comparing the Old and New Lectionaries
- A Tale of Two Lectionaries: Qualitative versus Quantitative Measures
- The Omission that Haunts the Church—1 Corinthians 11:27-29
- How Typical Lector Praxis Transmits a Pelagian and Protestant Message
- A Great Example of an Expurgated Reading in the New Lectionary
- Is Reading More Scripture at Mass Always Better?
- Floating in the Sea, Not Drinking from the Firehose
- The New Lectionary and the Catholic Wedding
- How the New Lectionary Treats (or Doesn’t) the Antichrist
- The Annunciation and the Subtle Use of Gospels in the Old Roman Rite
- In Defense of Preserving Readings in Latin
- Against Vernacular Readings in the Traditional Mass
- What’s Wrong with the New Lectionary (audio only)
Of related interest:
The Omission of ‘Difficult’ Psalms and the Spreading-Thin of the Psalter
(I am currently at work on a book that will offer a comprehensive apologia for the old lectionary and critique of the new one; look for it in the coming year.)
The experiment in running the old and new rites together was already tried years ago by the monks of Norcia, who started as a “biritual” community that offered Mass in the Novus Ordo and the Vetus Ordo, while singing the old monastic office. Over time, the incoherence of the alternating rites, the clashing of calendars, the lack of tight interaction between Mass and Office, and other inconveniences so pressed upon them that the monks unanimously chose a fully traditional way of life and worship, which instantly brought “pax liturgica”—the ability to rest in the rites of tradition, as countless monks, clerics, and laymen had done for centuries. And in this case, the lack of peace wasn’t a hybridized rite—God forbid—but a mere alternation between them.
I feel genuinely sorry for the Dominicans of the Holy Spirit, as they now embark on the bumpy, cratered, agitating road of incoherence that wiser monks and nuns have left behind: a forced and clumsy attempt to fit new in old, and old in new, will make the resulting neither-this-nor-that liturgical life more self-conscious and wearisome. And to think they are making this shift in 2024—decades after the problems of the new rite have been exhaustively experienced and canvassed! After so many souls, responsive to the same Holy Spirit who raised up for us these noble apostolic rites in their millennial plenitude, have successfully left behind the “banal on-the-spot product” for good! Thus we see the devastating results of placing obedience to renegade authorities higher than obedience to any other principle, including the universal and unanimous acceptance of liturgical tradition that has characterized Western religious life from its dawn until the rise of ultramontanism.
Nor is my concern limited to the current heads, more or less competent, of Roman dicasteries. For there are figures within the traditional movement who would gladly throw open the gates to the Trojan Horse of late Liturgical Movement innovations in order to maintain what they considered the core of their commitment. For example, in certain years on Pentecost Monday of the Chartres pilgrimage, the Epistle and Gospel have been read in French toward the congregation rather than being chanted in Latin while facing eastwards and northwards (a practice whose deep theological and symbolic meaning is explained in this lecture). Apparently many French and German priests who offer the TLM believe that the readings should be given in the vernacular only, and facing the people. This mentality is a consequence of a fundamental failure to understand the role of the Word of God in the Eucharistic liturgy, reflecting widespread errors—largely rationalist in origin—about the exclusively or primarily “instructional” nature of the first part of the Mass. [3]
Imagine a future pope—let us call him Pius XIII, perhaps hailing from Africa or Asia—who, with all the good intentions in the world, wishes to end the “liturgy wars” and therefore decides to produce a hybrid missal for the “Roman Rite” that combines what he, or a committee he appoints, decides are the best features of both. At this point it is almost a foregone conclusion that, among its components, such a hybrid rite would begin from the old Ordo Missae but adopt the new lectionary, precisely because it is considered such a great success, indeed a necessary step of progress in the Church’s relationship with the Bible.
I have no inside information about what is being planned, but it’s not difficult to connect the dots and to make projections. I say none of this to be a fearmonger or to promote anxiety. I simply wish to warn traditional clergy and faithful of the kind of maneuvers that our antagonists have in mind, so that we can make sure we ourselves understand well the rationale behind the traditional practices of the Roman Rite and, on that basis, be prepared to offer respectful but firm resistance to any attempts at diluting or destroying the integrity of that tradition. If or when the Dicastery for Divine Worship (or the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life) issues the command to adopt the new calendar, the new lectionary, and the new prefaces, we must be ready to say:
Non licet. Non possumus. It is not permitted. We cannot do it.
[1] Communiqué du 25 juillet 2024, translated from https://www.dominicaines-du-saint-esprit.fr/fr/communique-du-25-juillet-2024/.
[2] This is a trial run on a vulnerable group of nuns who seem to be in the grip of a false conception of obedience (see my work True Obedience in the Church for a full explanation). As for Donneaud’s critique of the French translation of my book, I think it is sufficient to point to John Lamont’s refutation of it here.
[3] It goes without saying that there is an instructional aspect, and that is why it has usually been the custom for the preacher to read the readings in the vernacular from the pulpit before his sermon. This is not a liturgical reading but a paraliturgical reading, for the benefit of those who do not know the Latin readings or have not followed them in a hand missal. Nor does it hurt to hear and read the readings twice, a point to which I will return later.
