Tridentine Mass, Eucharistic Ministers

The spirit of innovation of the past forty years has dulled the sensibilities of many churchmen to the seriousness and gravity of their almost routine ruptures with tradition. If it is pointed out to them that some innovation would obviously have been detested by the entire assembly of saints, they either do not care (an attitude that at one time would have been unthinkable for a Catholic) or they actually claim that we have made "progress" since their time. Such is the level of our spiritual idiocy that an age as spiritually and aesthetically impoverished as our own can describe itself as "progress," and interpret the saints' presumed displeasure at our novelties as a sign of their backwardness rather than of our immaturity.

As a convert, I have always found the use of "Eucharistic ministers" one of the most disturbing of the postconciliar innovations. I wondered: if Catholics really believe what they say about the Holy Eucharist, and if they really believe what they say about the holy priesthood, why on earth undermine both by the introduction of laymen into so sacred an area of the Church's life - and one into which laymen had never asked or desired admission? After all, St. Thomas Aquinas made an explicit connection between the ordination of the priest and his distribution of Holy Communion, and Pope John Paul II once pointed out the relationship between the consecration of the priest's hands and his inestimable privilege of distributing consecrated Hosts to the faithful.

None of this seems to matter to the innovators, whose ideological point isn't exactly subtle: the introduction of Eucharistic ministers clearly and obviously denigrates the office of the sacramental priesthood in the name of an egalitarianism utterly foreign to Catholic tradition (though, not coincidentally, quite welcome to the world). The implicit premise is that we must be conformed to the world: since the age we live in is one that emphasizes "equality," and since the privileges of the priesthood therefore seem incongruous and intolerable to the opinion makers of our time, the demands of the age rather than those of immemorial tradition must be satisfied.

In at least one case, Eucharistic ministers are apparently being foisted on an indult Mass community - that is, people who attend the Church's traditional Latin Mass. Of course, people who attend that Mass do so precisely in order to avoid the casual familiarity in the presence of the sacred that the use of Eucharistic ministers so plainly reflects. In a world that believes that nothing is immune to change, that the family itself is subject to redefinition according to human whim, they appreciate the fact that the piety and reverence of the traditional Latin Mass, in its beauty and stately reserve, and in its reservation of sacred tasks to the priest alone, reminds us that some things really are not to be touched by man. What message do our society and our children need more than this?

The great King Philip II of Spain, upon eyeing a young toddler attempting to scale the Communion rail, explained to the young child, "Only the priests may go there." Today, a generation with more misplaced self-confidence than spiritual maturity laughs at the beautiful and solemn piety of our forebears, who would never have dreamed of encroaching on the terrain of the holy priesthood and demystifying and rendering profane the site of the most beautiful and majestic thing on earth.

Good Catholic parents must therefore work against the pressures of the media, of the entertainment industry, and of the overall Zeitgeist to impart to their children the idea that some things are sacred, an idea that is best expressed through action and gesture. Holy Communion, they tell their children, by imparting to us a share in the divine life, is God's greatest gift to us on earth. Holy Communion, moreover, contains the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Himself. The only rational and spiritually mature response to such a gift, therefore, must be great reverence, and it is this message to children that the presence of Eucharistic ministers, non-ordained members of the faithful, consistently undermines. Since, moreover, the priest's exclusive custodianship of the Eucharist has traditionally been one of the aspects of the priesthood that has so fascinated and enticed boys from a young age about that sacred office, the use of Eucharistic ministers can only detract from the mystery of the priesthood that young boys find so compelling. (Why make all the sacrifices associated with the life of the priest if Mrs. Jones can feed the flock just as well as you can?)

It is this spiritual sickness that besets us on all sides, and which is practically institutionalized throughout American parish life, that people who attend the traditional Latin Mass are attempting to avoid. They make great sacrifices to attend these Masses, often driving hours each way or even relocating elsewhere in the country where the old Mass is more easily accessible. Bishops and pastors who go out of their way to demonstrate their "pastoral understanding" toward divorced and remarried Catholics, dissenting Catholics, feminist Catholics - the list gets much worse - have nothing but contempt for those Catholics who are simply trying to live the Faith as their fathers and grandfathers did, and who in their own way are trying to resist the surrounding culture's fixation with desacralization and the profane that bishops and pastors should themselves be resisting rather than indulging.

That Catholics should have to contend with their own pastors in such a struggle is bizarre and demoralizing enough, but that they should have to do so in the context of the traditional Mass is inexcusable. Such profanation shows utter disregard for the sensibilities of those present and gives scandal to the children. There is more than a touch of fanaticism in those who, while acquiescing in or positively encouraging such spectacles as charismatic hysteria, the alleged "cathedral" in Los Angeles, and interfaith liturgical dance, only grudgingly allow the traditional Mass of their own Church - and even then have to impose on its hapless faithful one of the most impious and destructive innovations since Vatican II, one which obviously violates the entire ethos of the old rite and the traditional view of the priesthood - that is, the only one the saints would have recognized. Can't these poor folks simply be left alone?

Re your comments on central Catholic doctrines not being present in the New Mass, this refutation by Fr. Most should answer your ignorance.

Rev. William G. Most
Rama P. Coomaraswamy, The Problem of the New Mass
Publication Information
(Vexilla Regis Cath. Bookstore, 8 Pond Place, Oyster Bay Cave, N.Y. 11771)

1. In The Problem of the New Mass, Rama P. Coomaraswamy presumes to decide by private judgment what is or is not a substantial change in the form of a sacrament. That is the way Protestants act. It is for the Church and the Church only to decide that. The Church has decided that the New Mass is valid. To attack this shows both disobedience and lack of faith. In what the author would call "the good old days" his booklet would have been automatically forbidden reading under Canon 1399. Today under a milder law it is still, by general moral principles, sinful to propagate this book, for it can be an occasion of sin for those not capable of answering it.

2. It is also guilty of rash judgment. The injunction of Christ: "Judge not" refers not to saying that what is objectively wrong is objectively wrong - it applies to presuming to pronounce on the motives, the interior of the one doing it. That is precisely what this booklet does: it assumes that more than one Pope let a committee deliberately make the Mass invalid.

We distinguish between the Popes - Paul VI, and John Paul II-- and some of the staff. It is just possible that some of staff - not the Popes - have had bad intentions. The author has documented the fact that quite a few specific wordings match those adopted by Protestants in their own worship with a heretical intention. He also cites some Vatican official (named, but I have not the booklet on hand now) who told a petitioner for the Tridentine Mass that the new Mass was a whole new Ecclesiology. That would lead him to think there was heretical intent. In spite of all that, our text is valid, for in itself it can express sound doctrine. The evil wish of some does not change the intention of the Pope and Church. And if even an ignorant priest (one with deficient seminary training, who does not understand the Mass as a sacrifice but only as a meal) intends to do what the Church does, that is sufficient for validity.

More likely there was simply a move in ecumenism, to try to make the Protestants more amenable to our Church. This in itself is laudable, but can cause confusion.

In this connection we need to carefully distinguish three things - doctrine, legislation, good judgment or managing.

As to doctrine: I should believe it because of the promises of Christ. And incidentally, He promised the gates of hell would not prevail against His Church. This booklet claims they have prevailed, by destroying the heart of the Church, the Mass. This is gross lack of faith. We are reminded of the words of the Epistle of James (2:10) saying that if someone violates one commandment, he is guilty of all. - The reason is this: He has denied the authority of the lawgiver, and so violates all. Now we might see something a bit parallel here. If a man believes all but one of the teachings of the Church, we ask: Why is it that he believes those he does believe? It seems it is not faith - for faith would lead him to accept all, not all but one. Therefore, we wonder if such a person has any faith at all. What seems to be faith is apt to be just old time stubbornness.

As to legislation and commands: We must obey unless the command is immoral. The Pope of course has not ordered anything immoral even though this author thinks two Popes have ordered or permitted the destruction of the Mass - which would be grossly immoral. Of course it did not happen!).But some U.S. Bishops have done wrong, in ordering religion textbooks for their schools which either do not convey the faith or even contradict it.

Good judgment or management: Here we look back on the first two items and ask: Is this done with good judgment? There is no promise of Christ, no claim by the Church to protection in it. Past Church history shows many defects in this. So if someone says now that there is a lack of judgment in allowing the potentially ambiguous features of the Mass texts that are mentioned, he is not breaking with the Church. But we must be careful to say no more than that it is a slip in judgment: we must not say the Mass is no longer a Mass .Then the promise of Christ to be with you all days even to the consummation of the world would have failed.

3. The author says that the claim that there is an Aramaic word behind "all" instead of many is just due to Protestant prejudice by J. Jeremias. This is a lack of scholarship. Jeremias is a fine scholar. But leaving him aside, we should know that there is a Hebrew word, rabbim, which means the all who are many. If I would be in a room with three persons, I could say all, but could not say many. We first meet this usage not in J. Jeremias but in the prophecy of Isaiah 53. In verse 6: "The Lord laid upon Him the iniquity of us all. "But then, referring to the same ones, in verses 11 and 12 we find rabbim: "My righteous servant will justify rabbim... he bore the sins of rabbim." Further if one uses a Greek concordance to the New Testament, he finds that absolutely every time St. Paul uses Greek polloi as a substantive, he means all, even though polloi normally in Greek means many. For example in Romans 5:19: "Just as by the disobedience of the one,the polloi were made sinners, so by the obedience of the one man, the polloi will be constituted just." St. Paul clearly means original sin - he does not mean only some contract original sin. He means all. The author says we changed to all to mean all are actually saved. Nonsense. It merely means Christ died for all. Aramaic saggi'in at least at times has the same sense as Hebrew rabbim. The Aramaic Targum on Isaiah 53:11 does use saggi'in. Cf. E. C. Maloney, Semitic Interference in Marcan Syntax, pp. 141-42 (Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation 51, 1981).

As to the statements of a few rather recent Saints (It is not as he claims, that the Church has always said this). They were simply showing how the only text they could think of was fitting. They had no notion of the language problem involved.

4. In the Confiteor, the author seems not to have read the new text of the Mass. On p.12: "we start out with a truncated confession 'to our brothers and sisters.' Post-Conciliar Catholics no longer beseech the Blessed Virgin, the angels and the saints for their prayers." This is simply a lie. The present text reads thus: "I confess to Almighty God [not just to brothers and sisters] and to you my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do. And I ask Blessed Mary ever Virgin, all the angels and saints, and you my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God." Incidentally in the old Mass we did pray to our brothers and sisters: "et vobis fratres."

We turn to other canons and only by mighty straining can the author make them look like no sacrifice:

In Canon 2: "Let your Spirit come [so it is the work of the Spirit, not of the congregation as author charges] upon these gifts to make them holy, so that they may become for us, the body and blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ." So the Real Presence is clearly here.... Then after the Consecration: "In memory of his death and resurrection [compare Canon 1: we celebrate the memory of Christ your Son... his passion, his resurrection from the dead and his ascension into glory] we offer you, Father, this life-giving bread, this saving cup [Canon 1: "the bread of life and the cup of eternal salvation."]

In Canon 3: We ask you to make them holy by the power of your Spirit [again it is the Spirit that does it, not the congregation] that they may become the body and blood of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ [Real Presence], at whose command we celebrate this Eucharist [so we mean to do what He commanded]." After the consecration: Father calling to mind the death your Son endured for our salvation [again, much like Canon 1]... we offer you this holy and living sacrifice... see the Victim whose death has reconciled us to yourself [this is the means of redemption, and so is sacrifice].... Lord may this sacrifice [the one just mentioned] which has made our peace with you, advance the peace and salvation of all the world."

Canon 4: "Father, may this Holy Spirit sanctify these offerings. Let them become the body and blood of Jesus Christ our Lord [Real Presence again]...." After Consecration: "Father we now celebrate this memorial of our redemption, we recall Christ's death, his descent among the dead, his resurrection, and his ascension... we offer you his body and blood,the acceptable sacrifice which brings salvation to the whole world. Lord look upon the sacrifice which you have given to your Church... Remember those for whom we offer this sacrifice...."

No word at all thus far in any canon about a sacred meal. Many times offering and sacrifice, and what is offered is the body and blood of Christ, changed into that by the Holy Spirit, not by the congregation.

5. The quotes given saying the Church cannot change anything refer only to substantial change -- which is to be judged by the Church, not by protestant private judgment. Further, the Church has actually made over the centuries many nonsubstantial changes in forms of sacraments, especially confirmation, penance, anointing.

END

This is so tiresome. It has been posted before and is easily refuted, point by point.

1. The New Mass is valid. So what? Nobody denies it. A clunker with a leaky fuel pump and bad breaks is a car; so is a well-maintained Mercedes. But I wouldn't want to drive the clunker across the country instead of the Mercedes. Validity proves nothing. The objection to the New Mass has nothing to do with validity and everything to do with the way it systematically undermines the Catholic faith and undergirds Protestant belief. No wonder Protestants were delighted with it--but Catholics stayed away by the millions after it was introduced in '69.

2. As for the claim that traditionalists use private judgment--nothing could be further from the truth. It is we who follow all previous popes and councils for two thousand years. It is the Neo-Catholics who lust after novelties and accept every sneeze of JnPII as divine revelation while ignoring their own Tradition and the entire history of the Catholic Church. For this crowd the only popes are Paul VI and JnPII. The only council is Vatican II. For them the Church was born in the mid-sixties. Its central doctrine is ecumenicism. Everything else is put on a back burner.

3. It is the Novus Ordo crowd who are the Protestants. They are the ones who follow Luther: who have turned the altars around to face the people as Luther did; who have thrown out the Offertory as Luther did; who have accepted the Lutheran perspective on Justification, denying the Church's own historic decree on the subject. It is laughable to call traditionalists people who use private judgment because they do not jump through heretical hoops and insist on retaining what has been handed-down through the ages. It is the Novus Ordo, after all, which was FABRICATED, INVENTED, MADE UP OUT OF WHOLE CLOTH--precisely to appeal to Protestants. Its very theological underpinnings is the Paschal Meal concept rejected by Trent. The reenactment of the sacrifice of the Cross instead is given short shrift--and is subordinate to the memorial meal aspects. This is distinctly Protestant. So is the concept of the priest-as-presiding minister rather than as one who sacrifices at the altar of God. This too is distinctly Protestant.

4. Blaming subordinates instead of the Pope is one thing; trying to separate the present papacy from the radical trends of the past twenty-four years is another. No one judges this Pope. In fact, SSPX makes it very clear that while certain of the papal acts--such as the prayer meetings held at Assisi or the kissing of the Koran--while scandalous and idolatrous--does not rise to the level of apostasy precisely because it is not known if JnPII has committed these transgressions for motives which were other than benign. It may well be he mistakenly thought such violations of Tradition--which saints and martyrs had for so many past centuries sacrificed their lives rather than commit--would somehow be helpful in his push for a radical ecumenicism. So we don't judge--but we are surely allowed to THINK. And THINKING forces an inevitable conclusion: what this Pope does is often at odds with Catholic Tradition. This is a source of great worry and considerable alarm. It is not surprising that such a papacy has borne so little spiritual fruit.

5. Once again we must distinguish between the need to obey a just command and the right to refuse an unjust command. It is never proper for superiors to exceed their own authority by demanding blind obedience in matters which would harm the Church. Even the doctors of the Church teach this. This is because the laws of God may never be transgressed--not even for a pope. This is why Tradition--guided by the Holy Spirit and sustained by all previous popes and councils of the past two millenia--is a far surer guide to proper conduct than any passing novelty. Surely this Pope should be refused, therefore, when his commands run contrary to that very Tradition and to the teachings of previous popes and councils and defy even common sense. In this respect, Archbishop Lefebvre was right to disobey JnPII when he was denied permission to consecrate--since obedience would have been tantamount to the destruction of Catholic Tradition itself.

"Why has kneeling been prohibited at communion"

IT HAS NOT - it is SOME bishops and SOME bishop's conferences that have TRIED to prohibit it for motives I do not know for sure but suspect are apostate - but this is not a feature of the Novus Ordo per se.

"Why are almost all genuflections eliminated?"

Genuflections are retained if the rubrics are followed - reduced in number maybe but present nevertheless. It doesn't matter if I genuflect once or five times before the blessed sacrament. What matters is if I do not genuflect at all, or if I do not BELIEVE that what is before me is Almighty God Himself. The number of genuflections is mere externalism and can be carried off by anyone - no matter what their belief.

"Why has the tabernacle been shunted aside from its central place of honor?"

IT HAS NOT - again only some have done this - it is not part of the Novus Ordo that the tabernacle should move anywhere.

"Why were the words "Mystery of Faith" removed from the Consecration and placed elsewhere in the New Mass?"

This is definitely a deficiency in the Novus Ordo compared to the Tridentine rite - both rites have numerous deficiencies.

"The Novus Ordo undermines Catholic belief. It is turning Catholics into Protestants. That is a simple fact, like it or not."

No - this is where traditionalists miss the point entirely - it is HETERODOXY which is undermining Catholic belief, and HETERODOXY which is turning Catholics into Protestants.

The Novus Ordo is an entirely neutral instrument in this regard - if it or the old rite is wielded by an apostate innovator - then it will promote heterodoxy. If it or the old rite is wielded by an orthodox believer in accordance with the mind of the Church, then it will promote orthodoxy.

THE RITES THEMSELVES HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO POWER TO DETERMINE THE FAITH OF THE PARTICIPANTS.

The proof of this is the 400 years that we had of the Tridentine rite - what good did it do us compared to the Novus Ordo?

EVERY BISHOP and peritus at Vatican II was born, bred, raised, and ordained in the Tridentine rite, and it was these wimps, emasculated by Ultra-Montanism, that gave us the documents of Vatican II.

It was the clergy and laity who were raised and educated in the Tridentine rite, again emasculated by Ultra-Montanism, who rolled over and died rather than fight when the innovations and perversions were introduced after the Council.

It was the Tridentine rite which had given us a Church filled with lemings who knew nothing of their faith and how to defend it, nothing of the bible and how to understand it, who were totally defenceless before the onslaught of Satan when it came in the wake of the Council.

So if 400 solid years of the Tridentine rite resulted in the festering dung-heap of Post-Conciliar Catholicism, WHAT THE HELL MAKES YOU THINK IT IS THE CURE ALL FOR OUR PRESENT SITUATION?????????

You are wrong about the prohibition on kneeling for communion. While a bishop here or there may ignore the decree, it was issued by the Bishops' Conference.
You are wrong about genuflections as well. In and of themselves, their elimination means nothing. Linked to all the other attempts to suppress awareness of the Real Presence, it succeeds in undermining the faith.

MOST tabernacles in most churches have been removed from the central position. This is a fact. That not all parishes have done so is beside the point. The great majority have denied the Blessed Sacrament a primacy of place. Christ Himself is no longer the focal point when we enter most Catholic churches. It is the presider's chair that is now central in the sanctuary.

The removal of the referece to Transubstantiation as the Mystery of Faith was not accidental. It underscores everything else--communion in the hands, continual reference to Christ's virtual presence in the assembly and a textual silence regarding his ACTUAL presence. All these changes, backed up by new theologies and new teachings, together with a suppression and subversion of Tradition and the old Mass, add up to a virtually new religion.

You are wrong about the new rite itself having no power to effect a change in belief. The New Rite is a memorial meal primarily and only secondarily a sacrifice. There is virtually no difference between what a majority of Catholics and Protestants believe these days. According to a 1992 Gallup poll, seven out of ten Catholics no longer believe in the Real Presence. This tells us clearly that Catholics have been successfully protestantized.

You argue it is heterodoxy that causes these anomalies--as if Rome itself disapproved. But the heterodoxy comes from the top. Nothing has ever been done by way of disciplinary actions to rein-in even the worst excesses. The Vatican has known liturgical abuses are pandemic for decades but does nothing. Orthodoxy on the other hand, has been punished. Archbishop Lefebvre was unjustly persecuted for years before he was excommunicated. Father Bisig of FSSP was fired as superior general. Traditionalist theologians of the FSSP were also recently given their walking papers. Even minor traditionalist infractions brings swift and harsh reprisals.

As for the "400 years of the Tridentine Mass"--first of all, you need to get your time frame right. Trent only codified the old Latin rite, the canon of which had been fixed by the fifth century. Parts of the old Mass go back to the time of the apostles. What Trent did was make this ancient rite the sole standard in the West--it did not introduce the rite which was already a thousand years old by the time of Trent. The very least you can do is understand the parameters of this debate--which comes down to this: you have on the one hand a rite that has organically evolved under the guidance of the Holy Spirit--and on the other hand, a rite fabricated by an uninspired committee led by a freemason. That you as a Catholic have the gall to ask what good the old Mass had done shows me how low we've sunk in catechesis. Do you think the Catholic Church was born only yesterday with Vatican II and that it has had only JnPII for a pope? Do you have no conception at all of the millions of saintly lives that were dedicated throughout the Church's history for the salvation of many more millions of souls?

Finally, read the preconciliar popes on Modernism. Do you think they did not know the enemy was already lurking in their midst waiting for a chance to foment a revolution? Why do you suppose the Syllabus of Errors was promulgated, if not to warn us of what might happen? Vatican II gave them their chance and they seized it to set in motion the systematic destruction of Catholic Tradition. They have been helped in the process by two bad popes. This is the tragedy of the past forty years and the true genesis of the present corruption.

"You are wrong about the prohibition on kneeling for communion...it was issued by the Bishops' Conference."

Maybe by your Bishops' conference - not by mine - the Catholic Church is much bigger than the US.

"In and of themselves, their elimination means nothing."

There you go hyperbolising again - they have not been eliminated - only reduced in number - at least that is the case in the UK - maybe US practice differs?

"MOST tabernacles in most churches have been removed from the central position."

Again this may be the case in the US - it is not yet the case in the UK.

"continual reference to Christ's virtual presence in the assembly and a textual silence regarding his ACTUAL presence."

I do not recognise this description of the Mass I participate in. When I incense the sacred species at the consecration (on my knees and vested) no one present can be in any doubt that we are worshipping the body and the blood.

"The New Rite is a memorial meal primarily and only secondarily a sacrifice."

I disagree with your assertion here, but even were it true, if you look up the biblical references to memorials in Leviticus and Numbers particularly, you will see that all have sacrifice as the central part of their liturgy. Trent condemned the protestant concept of "mere memorial" - not the biblical concept of memorial.

In order for the Mass to be effective for our salvation, it must be BOTH sacrifice and memorial meal. Your insistence on imposing a false dichotomy between the two is typical of protestant theology - not Catholicism.

"According to a 1992 Gallup poll, seven out of ten Catholics no longer believe in the Real Presence. This tells us clearly that Catholics have been successfully protestantized."

I agree with your assertion here and I have it confirmed daily in pastoral experience. However, I disagree that this can simply be ascribed to the New Rite of Mass. To reduce the present parlous state of the Church to a question of which rite is celebrated is to miss the heart of the matter and thus avoid dealing with the real problem.

"But the heterodoxy comes from the top."

Yes - there is a continuing battle being waged between orthodoxy and heterodoxy at the highest levels of the Church, even as we speak. We can either enter into that battle or run away from it. We do not serve Christ by retreating into a traditionalist ghetto and calling people names.

"As for the "400 years of the Tridentine Mass"--first of all, you need to get your time frame right."

I am fully aware of the history of the liturgy thank you. In the entire English speaking world it was the Sarum Rite which was celebrated prior to Trent, and that is a very different rite again.

"Trent only codified the old Latin rite, the canon of which had been fixed by the fifth century. Parts of the old Mass go back to the time of the apostles."

Absolutely - which is why the Novus Ordo retains most of these.

"Do you think the Catholic Church was born only yesterday with Vatican II and that it has had only JnPII for a pope?"

That is my whole point - the heterodoxy and modernism were present like a cancer long before the Council. They may have been covered over and suppressed by the pre-conciliar regime, but they were present in many men's hearts just as they are now.

Of course many great saints were cultivated under the old rite, as they have been throughout the Church for all time, but the heretics, schismatics and modernists have all been lurking there all along as well.

They are the ones who have been the instruments in creating this mess and they were as plentiful in the old rite as they are in the new.

"Do you think they did not know the enemy was already lurking in their midst waiting for a chance to foment a revolution?"

Exactly my point - the enemy was already there before they changed the Mass. This is why to propose a causal link between the presence of the new Mass and the enemy flies in the face of all the facts.

The difference now is that under the new regime they are visible. If you can see an enemy - you can kill it!

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