beginning with a false premise - that changes were well under way - when truth is there was ONE change under Pope Pius XII and that was a revision to the liturgy of Holy Week.
then, leaping to another false premise - that it was the 1970 missal that was to blame for all the abuses. By 1970, the traditional Latin form had been outlawed by most bishops.
finally, the inevitable conclusion - that was not the issue to fight on. It is the next one where will stand our ground. Sound familiar?
Changes were certainly well underway before the Holy Week change. Permissions for the vernacular were being given more and more through the 1900s, particularly in mission territories. Then there was the “Novus Ordo” of the Breviary by Pius X, who really gutted the Roman Office. I’m not sure why he gets off scot-free when Paul VI gets his due criticism.
Msgr Pope is right that the Mass of 1965 was a much less jarring change than that of 1970. Though perhaps the modernists would have perverted any Missal they were given.
There had actually been many changes made since Pius X, and while the changes that appeared in the 1970 were not the changes in question (and in fact, were undreamed of by anybody except Bugnini and the bunch of liturgical wackos who put them together), there were plans to make a few more reasonable changes.
Personally, I don’t object to using the vernacular in parts of the Mass, and actually, there were some already some dioceses where particular churches, university churches, generally, had permission to offer the Mass in English, at least in the “public” parts. The translation was that already approved for use in the missals.
But what happened in 1970 was a complete break with Catholic liturgical tradition, particularly since, while it was imposed rapidly and harshly and destroyed the old immediately, it wasn’t even very fixed in its own form. Bishops and even priests were given the right to modify just about everything for “pastoral reasons.” And thus was born the clown mass...