S Pius V: the BIG MISTAKE, THE UNIVERSAL MYTH

Fr Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment ^ | 05-05-2015 | Fr. John Hunwicke

[NRx]

There is a myth which is endlessly repeated ... I groan every time I read it ... about the liturgical reforms of S Pius V. It goes like this:

(1) He wished to standardise and centralise. So he ordered everybody to use his new edition of the Roman Missal (but he did permit those with rites more than 200 years old to keep them).

This is pretty well the opposite of what his legislation ordered. He:

(2) Ordered those with such old rites to keep them. But, if they positively wanted to adopt his new edition instead, he permitted them to adopt it AS LONG AS THE BISHOP AND THE UNANIMOUS CHAPTER WERE IN AGREEMENT.

If you don't want to believe me, I suggest you read the actual TEXT of Quo primum yourself and find out. DO NOT READ SOMEBODY'S SUMMARY OF THE BULL, BECAUSE THAT WILL (almost certainly) JUST TELL YOU THE MYTH.

[NRx]

This will likely be of limited interest to non-Catholics.

[katana]

You’d be surprised at the level of friendly interest many Protestants, myself included, have in what might seem to be arcane Roman Catholic discussions. And the same applies when Jewish scholars go at one another. Two and three thousand years respectively of theological thought and debate are deep wells to explore.