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A Look at the “Actual Mass” of Vatican II: the 1965 Missal By: Msgr. Charles PopeA couple of weeks ago I wrote a cautionary article aimed at my traditionally-minded brethren saying, among other things, that we ought to be careful in identifying the Ordinary Form of the Mass (1970 Missal and beyond) as the “Mass of Vatican II.”  I will not reproduce that whole article here. I will only recall three points:1. The Mass was already undergoing significant changes, beginning in the 1940s and picking up speed through the 1950s. More changes were planned by the Vatican before the Second Vatican...

Featured Term (selected at random):SITTING The posture prescribed liturgically for certain parts of the Mass. The faithful are to be seated during the First Reading, the Responsorial Psalm, and the Second Reading; during the Homily; during the Offertory (optional); and during the period of Silence After Communion. In other liturgical functions sitting is also a part of the cermony, e.g., during the readign or singing of the psalms in the Divine Office. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Mass etiquette: Obey rubrics, be charitable By Nissa LaPoint It’s likely a familiar scene to Mass-goers. Across the pew, one man strikes his breast to the words of the Penitential Act while a tardy couple with a baby apologetically stumbles past him. The majority prays on bended knees, but at the consecration, one woman slips out to answer a vibrating Blackberry. One sniffling parishioner clasps hands with another during the Lord’s Prayer. Others pray with folded hands. Many Catholic faithful have fallen victim to and grappled with such liturgical conundrums and church faux pas. As the one-year anniversary of the...

Fellow Catholics, I'm looking for your insight. I've been attending a new parish up nearby this woman I just started dating. From my brief experience there, I can already tell this is a rather liberal parish which may or may not be doing some illicit things during its Mass. I'm not an absolute expert, so I'd love to hear some opinions and discussion on some of the questionable things I saw at Mass last week: - In lieu of the homily, the priest performed a brief marriage ceremony. - The marriage ceremony consisted solely of the vows and blessing and...

This June, at the meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in Los Angeles, the bishops will vote on the first English translations of the new Roman Missal, released four years ago -- the third “typical edition” of the Missal since the Second Vatican Council. There are two “Liturgy action items”: 1)Voting on the English translation of the Order of Mass, preceded by voting on proposed amendments to this text; and 2) A list of adaptations, proposed by the Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy as additions to the Missal for the United States.The voting procedures are complex and,...

The Evil of Liturgical Abuse by Msgr. Vincent Foy "The liturgy has its laws which must be respected. " Pope John Paul II, March 8, 1997. A liturgical crisis has been brewing for a long time. Back in 1973, Archbishop Robert Dwyer of Portland Oregon, wrote: "Sincere Christian men and women in their thousands and millions are reacting against the impoverishment and degradation of the liturgy, as they are reacting against so many displays of enfeebled or uncertain leadership." (Catholic Priests' Association Bulletin [England]. Vol. I and II, 1973, p.42). Since then, the crisis has deepened. Abuses are pandemic. The...

he Eucharist belongs to the entire church, universal as well as local. The dynamics of its structure are deeply rooted in the theology of God's grace and in the reality of human religious experience. The Eucharist, rooted in Scripture and Jewish prayer, has been shaped by centuries of tradition, and then reshaped as it was handed over from one culture to another. As if to signal that its elements were not subject to the whim of individual congregations or presiders, the Second Vatican Council's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy stipulated changes could only be made by those authorized to do...