The liturgical reform was not engineered by Bugnini, but came as the result of many years of liturgical scholarship. It has been embraced by the Bishops of Rome since Pope Paul VI and has been enthusiastically embraced by the vast majority of bishops of the Latin church, not to mention millions of faithful for over forty years.

I'll quote Father Taft on this one. "This is what is known in the vernacular as slander." Your remarks and the respondents above are unfounded. The liturgical reform was not engineered by Bugnini, but came as the result of many years of liturgical scholarship. It has been embraced by the Bishops of Rome since Pope Paul VI and has been enthusiastically embraced by the vast majority of bishops of the Latin church, not to mention millions of faithful for over forty years. The fact is, as Father Taft notes, the reforms and the council that spawned them have been received by the Latin church. Is not that the mark of acceptance? No apologies needed. People leave the Church for many reasons, as once did I. I left from the weakness of my faith, and I suspect so do most. Liturgical abuse is another issue, but on this one good Father Taft is absolutely correct.

The Novus Ordo, whatever it's source, has been embraced by the vast majority in the Latin church including the present Holy Father.

Cardinal Ratzinger on the Novus Ordo: “After the Council… in place of the liturgy as the fruit of organic development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it, as in a manufacturing process, with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product”.

I trust this statement...

I find it difficult to believe that one who has so vehemently argued on this forum that acceptance by the Church is a hallmark of orthodoxy should repudiate the acceptance of the Novus Ordo by the vast majority in the Latin church as suspect.

Believe me, Stuart, by 1963 my generation was longing for an alternative to the Tridentine Mass. We had no alternative either, but accepted, in faith, gladly what we had.

The Novus Ordo was a big relief, and has born fruit.

The adherents of the Tridentine form have had the support of those same popes, and can now use this form unimpeded, though some bishops have found this Vatican "bullying". I am very happy that these people find solace and comfort in these rites. They are available every Sunday here in Maine at the cathedral in Portland at a very convenient time. A handful of people attend in Maine's largest city. They are not marginalized, but they are on the margin.

Believe me, Stuart, by 1963 my generation was longing for an alternative to the Tridentine Mass. We had no alternative either, but accepted, in faith, gladly what we had. The Novus Ordo was a big relief, and has born fruit. The popes have acknowledged that it has, and, while not perfect, it remains the standard of worship in the Latin church. The adherents of the Tridentine form have had the support of those same popes, and can now use this form unimpeded, though some bishops have found this Vatican "bullying". I am very happy that these people find solace and comfort in these rites. They are available every Sunday here in Maine at the cathedral in Portland at a very convenient time. A handful of people attend in Maine's largest city. They are not marginalized, but they are on the margin.

Theologically, the Trent liturgy is no less troubled, just in different ways: The people as audience, the lack of explicit post-narrative epiclesis, the lack of instructive content.
Abuse-wise, people forget how abused the Trent missal was.

I think the cited article by Father Taft makes the point, and a very good one. That's my point.

Communion in hand is wrong. Lay people distributing communion is wrong. Priests facing west for the consecration is most definitely wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The people aren't just an audience in the Traditional Mass. There's been a lot of discussion about just what "active participation" is. Just because people are chanting or saying things (which, preferably, they should be doing of course), doesn't mean they're not participating.

Fr. Serge begins with a quote from Sacrosanctum Concillium, that "the full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered before all else", and then he notes that "Every conceivable device, every trivialization of the Sacred Mysteries, has been justicied in the name of 'active participation'". He quotes Prof. Mark Searle's devastating one-line put-down of the Novus Ordo in that regard: "Rarely was their an atmostphere of deeply prayerful involvement", and Fr. Serge notes that "Any further criticism of the Novus Ordo might even be superfluous. Participatio actuoso in the sacred Liturgy means deeply prayerful involvement; any so-called 'active participation' in the liturgy in the absence of deeply prayerful involvement is nonsense and blasphemy".

Turning to the origins of the Novus Ordo, Fr. Serge reviews the fundamental principles of the liturgical movement prior to Vatican II, in order to show that the founders and leaders of the movement (Baumstarck, Bott, Casel, Congar, Danielou, Gamber, Herwegen, Jungmann, and Louis Bouyer) would not (indeed, did not) set out to dismantle the Latin liturgical tradition, nor to put in its place so flawed a liturgy as the Novus Ordo. What were those
principles? He enumerates nine in all:

1. Fidelity to the Church. Fr. Serge (who knew many of these man personally), observes that they were people who "loved the Church above everything except God Himself--and since they found God and love God in the Church, which is the Body of Christ, they found no reason to declare such an exception". For them, there was no liturgical movement apart from the Church, "because, in the happy phrase of St. Pius X, liturgy is the Church's
own piety".

2. Reverence for the Liturgy. Fr. Serge quotes one of the few living members of the preconcilliar liturgical movement, Fr. Boniface Luykx, that "the Liturgy is the dwelling place of God, to be approached with worship and awe", a belief that is demonstrated by the manner in which Luykx himself celebrates the Liturgy (he is now Abbot of the Holy Transfiguration Monastary in California).

3. Dedication to Ressourcement. Serge notes that the liturgical movement was closely linked to the patristic revival that began in the late 19th century. Leaders of the liturgical movement, he states, realized that one could only understand the liturgy in the context of the Holy Fathers of the Church. They supported the publication of the works of the Holy Fathers, and their translation into modern languages. And, above all, "they
taught their students the necessity of reading and studying the works of the Holy Fathers".

4. Propagation of Greater Knowledge of the Liturgy. These men wanted the Catholic faithful at every level to understand the content and meaning of the Liturgy. They promoted the publication of missals (a rarity before then) so that the faithful could actually follow the words and actions. Bi-lingual missals were actually prohibited until 1897, and the first complete Latin-English missal was not published until 1910.

5. Efforts to Promote the Divine Office. The liturgical reformers wanted to make the Divine Office an integral part of the faith of all the people, and not merely a priest's prayerbook. Thus, they promoted and published bi-lingual service books that included vespers, compline and other offices of the Hours, and ecouraged their use in parishes.

6. Appreciation of Authentic Liturgical Music. In particular, Fr. Serge notes, Gregorian Chant. Also, an attempt to restore the best in iconography and appointments for the altar and the interior of the church.

7. Profound Interest in the Eastern Churches. Most especially, the Eastern liturgies. The liturgical movement published liturgical texts, arranged for public celebrations of the Eastern Liturgies, and in general believed that there was much the West could learn from the East in this area. As a result, the leaders of the liturgical movement also became leaders of the ecumenical movement between Rome and Constantinople, which in turn led to a
fruitful cross-pollination with liturgical reformers in the East (Eliade, Gillet, Korolevskty, Popidara, and Schememann, among others).

8. Reverence for Sacred Scriptures. To support their liturgical activities, the reformers also pressed to place Biblical studies on a sound footing, recognizing that the Bible is the Book of the Church, to be read in Church.

9. Strong Monastic Foundation. Monastaries were at the forefront of the Liturgical movement through the mid-1950s, in large part because liturgy is such a large part of the monastic vocation.

Fr. Serge Kelleher provides the following summary that should be kept in mind as we continue through the remainder of his critique of the Novus Ordo:



This leads Fr. Serge to begin an inquiry into what went wrong. He notes that the great leaders of the liturgical movement believed that in Sacrosanctum Concillium the Church had adopted their guiding princples wholesale. Why then, he asks, do we find, thirty years later, that those who truly care for the genuine orthodox Tradition of the Catholic Church taking refuge in the Eastern Churches, or trying desperately to maintain the Tridentine Mass and "barring the door to anything that even reminds them of the Novus Ordo", or, in some cases, maintaining that the problem is not the Novus Ordo, but the "abuses" heaped upon it. But, Fr. Serge observes, the Novus Ordo continues to deteriorate. He quotes from the Psalms in a most appropriate passage:



Fr. Serge notes that as early as 1966, Fr. Louis Bouyer, perhaps the greatest of all the liturgical reformers, was warning that the movement was being hijacked by people who were using its language to subvert its principles:

Already we too often observe how individual aberrations or collective daydreams succeed in spinning a web around the best orientations of conciliar authority. For all the defects in the liturgy, whether in the past or of the present, and for everything that accompanies, sustains or produces them [i.e., liturgical errors] in piety as well as in religious thought, there can be but one remedy. And this is a return to the sources, as long as it is authentic and not one that is pretended or miscarried.

By 1968, Fr. Bouyer wrote:



Fr. Serge stands behind Louis Bouyer's accusation that those who purported to apply the liturgical directives of Vatican II deliverately turned their backs on the guiding principles of the liturgical movement. Writes Fr. Serge:



But Fr. Serge Kelleher does not look upon the pre-Conciliar Church as a liturgical Eden before the serpent of reform tempted the Church away from the true faith. No, he identifies a number of pre-Conciliar sources for the current crisis. Of these, he covers in detail no fewer than six distinct tendencies:

1. Authoritarian Clericalism. The notion that everything must be done out of obedience of the "because I said so" variety in fact breeds subservience, and not interior religious assent or genuine understanding. He notes that parish priests who heaped abuse on those advocating vernacular liturgy in 1961 could and did use exacting the same language to abuse those advocating the retention of Latin and Gregorian chant in 1968. He notes that the liturgical movement was naive in thinking that this deeply ingrained mindset would be removed by concilliar decree.

2. Idolization of Practicality. Fr. Serge notes that there is a tendancy to measure the success of the Church in concrete terms like numbers of baptisms, marriages, Mass attendance, etc., and less on the spiritual life of the faithful. He quotes a story by Fr. Alexander Schmemann, who whilst travelling with a Roman Catholic priest, happened to bring up Louis Bouyer. The Catholic priest denounced Bouyer, calling the liturgical movement a bunch of romantics with no concern for the "practical" elements of parish life. His supposed clinching argument was to invite Fr. Schmemann to his parish, where he could take a look at the parking lot. Fr. Serge observes that an overly business-like approach to the Holy Mysteries places churches in danger of becoming the sacramental equivalent of gas stations--and he doesn't doubt that Schmemann's parish priest would consider that a compliment.

3. Uneducated and Unconcerned Clergy. Serge Kelleher observes that prior to Vatican II, seminaries and religious orders actively discouraged serious study of the Liturgy. Courses "on" liturgy were actually courses on memorizing the rubrics. Louis Bouyer reports that after joining the Oratory, he was told by his superiors, "You're much too interested in things like Holy Scripture and the liturgy. Real Catholics don't attach suchimportance to those things". Recognize, please, that the Protestant stereotype of Catholic worship did indeed have some basis in truth.

Fr. Serge notes that clergy formed in that environment did not find inspiration in liturgy, or have much respect for those who did. The authors of Sacrosanctum Concillium were aware of this problem, and included strongly worded sections on the importance of teaching liturgy in the seminaries and religious houses. But, he notes, far too often those sections were ignored or subverted.

Bad as this problem was among priests, it was also damnably present in bishops. He notes that shortly after being elevated to the papacy, John XXIII pontificated at Solemn Vespers--the first time that the Bishop of Rome had done so in more than seventy five years. Francis Cardinal Spellman so disliked celebrating the Mass that he received a dispensation from Pope Pius XII "so that he never recited the Divine Office, and almost never celebrated the Eucharist (though on Christmas he would celebrate a low Mass for servicemen at a nearby military base). Cardinal Spellman, while an extreme case, was no anomaly, to the point that Sacrosanctum Concillium had to include provisions stating explicitly the duty of the bishop to lead the liturgical life of the dioceses.

4. Irreverence. Many "traditionalist" Catholics have dim or hazy memories of the pre-Conciliar Church, and seem to think that there was a much greater degree of reverence for the Mass then, than there is now. That may be the case, but Fr. Serge demonstrates that the degree of reverence then still left much to be desired. Specifically, he points to the Holy Table of the Altar. Under the pre-Vatican II rubrics, there were precise instructions for the materials, care, and positioning of the altar, but in point of fact, seldom were these implemented. Supposedly made of stone, most altars were in fact hollow wooden boxes (frequently marblized) and were, contrary to all prohibitions, often used for storage purposes.

He also points to the abuse of simultaneous services, recounting how he once visited a parish in which a Mass was in progress at the main altar, a second priest was addressing the congregation from the pulpit throughout the Mass, a third priest was distributing Holy Communion continuously at the altar rail, a marriage was taking place in one side chapel, and devotions were being held audibly in another side chapel, whilst in the midst of all this "pious chaos" several other priests attempted to hear confessions. He also notes that the Blessed Sacrament was enthroned in a monstrance on the main altar, even though the rubrics disapproved of the celebration of Mass in the presence of the enthroned Blessed Sacrament. Fr. Serge wryly observes that had anyone tried to point this out the parish priest, he would have been told to go elsewhere; he notes that the faithful who have attempted to point out abuses in the Novus Ordo have been similarly dismissed.

5. Overwhelming Preference for the Low Mass. Fr. Serge hurls quite a number of bombshells here. To begin with, he notes that all prostestations to the contrary notwithstanding, the real basis for the Novus Ordo is the Low Mass. He follows this with a brief synopsis on the development of the low Mass; i.e., how it began as an abbreviated form of the Solemn Mass to be used when priests celebrated without the presence of a congregation, how it eventually became a public Mass, with the congregation worshipping however they pleased while the priest also prayed silently, and how music unrelated to the liturgical action was gradually inserted into the Low Mass. He observes that the Solemn (High) Mass came to be regarded as suitable only for the most important holy days, and generally a burden to be avoided. While every scholar knew that the Pontifical High Mass was the normative form of the Roman Liturgy, everyone's practical experience was the opposite: the Low Mass was normal, and the High Mass a rare aberration, which ordinary Catholics avoided at all costs.

He notes that in this century, attempts at reforming the Low Mass led to a variety of other abuses, starting with the so-called "Dialogue Mass" that originated in Germany in the 1920s, and which reached the US in the 1950s. The Dialogue Mass was a low Mass in which the entire congregation recited the responses once said silently by the acolytes. The existence of this hybrid made celebration of the High Mass even more rare, but worse, it encouraged misunderstanding of the congregational role in the Mass. For instance, the priest continued to read silently the Propers, which should have been sung by the congregation; the people did not recite the Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, or Agnus Dei--all of which were still recited silently by the priest. At the same time, the people did recite the Suscipiat response to the Orate, Fratres--which rightfully are a dialogue between the celebrant and concelebrating presbyters.


Fr. Serge quotes Cardinal Heenan in a 1967 interview, in which Heenan said.



In other words, Low Mass is what matters, Music is a "trivial embellishment" that would drive people from the Church.

6. A Passion for Uniformity (and conversely, a Terror of Pluralism). Fr. Serge notes that devotees of the Novus Ordo often compare its erstwhile "pluralism" with the "rigidity" of the pre-Concilliar liturgy. But, he observes, the truth is more complex. Taking on the language issue first, he takles the "argument from tourism", that because of Latin, the Mass is the same for Catholics everywhere and at any time. He says regarding this:

.

Fr. Serge then goes on to state that three decades later, the official liturgical books of the Novus Ordo have so many options that one needs a computer to keep them all straight, but that in reality the options are constrained by a prevailing group-think. He gives examples:

-The Sacramentary provides for the chanting of the Gospel, but where in any Roman Catholic parish will you find this done?

-The Roman Canon, first of the four Eucharistic Prayers, has a special variations for the Communicantes at Christmas, and the General Instruction states that the Roman Canon be used on days for which such variations are appropriate, but often this is not done because the text is omitted from the service books and misslettes given to the people.

-The Eastward Orientation of the celebrant. Fr. Serge notes with growing outrage (I know the man--he's about six foot six, full-blown Irish, and has a temper) that there is not one official document that requires the priest to celebrate the Mass using the versus populum; i.e., facing the people:

The rubrics of the Novus Ordo assume that the celebrant is facing East, and require him to turn and face the people to bestow certain blessings. But may God in His infinite mercy be kind to the priest who dares to celebrate the Novus Ordo facing East! One may not even discuss the matter (almost no Catholic bookshops will sell Monsignor Klaus Gamber's book on the subject).

(For those who want it, the title is The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, Its Problems and Background, Una Voce Press (San Juan Capistrano, CA) 1993); despite some hyperbole surrounding the origins of the Roman rite, the book is actually quite good on recent developments.

Fr. Serge concludes this part of his paper by observing that:



Having examined the principles of the liturgical movement, and the preconciliar roots of the current crisis, Fr. Serge Kelleher now addresses the question of what the liturgical movement actually wanted. He begins by noting that he was a dedicated vernacularist who looked forward to the celebration of the Mass in English. Two things, however, he and his fellow reformers never anticipated:

First, that celebration of the Roman Liturgy in Latin would be prohibited. Such a prohibition is nowhere mentioned in Sacrosanctum Concillium; in fact, it states that use of the vernacular may be extended, while that of Latin is retained. Furthermore, it directed that all the faithful should be taught to sing certain parts of the Mass in Latin. The liturgical movement also expected that Latin and vernacular celebrations of the Mass would exist side-by-side, with the Latin version remaining normative.

He says that, in retrospect, such an expectation was unrealistic, because most priests were unwilling to maintain anything resembling a choice (Kelleher is too nice to imply that most priests heartily detested Latin, a language in which they had only limited facility).

Second, and this is most telling, "Still less did we realize that "vernacular" was going to mean a cross between computerese and newspaper jargon". Kelleher tells us that it was the expectation of the liturgical movement in the English-speaking countries (Kelleher himself is Irish, schooled in the US and UK) that the Anglican translations of the Roman Liturgy would be adapted for Catholic use, since the Anglicans had been using all or
part of the Roman Liturgy in English for a very long time, and had done much work in liturgical chant. "Why refuse to benefit from this work and instead attempt to reinvent the wheel?"

Kelleher puts this failure down to one factor, totally unrelated to the principles and objectives of liturgical reform: secularism.


It should be noted here that Kelleher knew Bugnini and many other prelates who were even more intimate with him, and that this is an authentic representation of Bugnini's views (See "Interview with Abbot Boniface Luykx" Inside the Vatican, May 1996 for independent confirmation). He also notes that Bugnini was merely the most visible advocate of a perspective that was fairly widespread within the Vatican Curia at the time.

Finally, Fr. Serge Kelleher addresses one of the most commonly repeated myths about the Novus Ordo: that its formulation was heavily influenced by the Christian East. As a Ukrainian Greek Catholic, Fr. Serge has a personal interest in this issue.

He begins with a quote by the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch, +Maximos IV, at Vatican II:



Kelleher looks at the relationship between the Novus Ordo and the Eastern liturgies, and while noting that the advocates of the new Mass sometimes claimed an Eastern inspiration for their changes, it was but a short-lived "affair of convenience", one that flattered Eastern Catholics and gave the Novus Ordo reformers a cover of legitimacy. But any real relationship between the Novus Ordo and the Eastern liturgies is illusory, because the two are
based on diametrically opposed assumptions about the relationship of God and man.

Kelleher looks at some specific "points of resemblance" between the Novus Ordo and the Eastern liturgies:

1. Concelebration: the Byzantine liturgy specifically allows for concelebration whenever the clergy so desire; in other traditions, concelebration occurs only at special occasions, if at all. Under the Tridentine Rite, concelebration was limited only to the consecration of bishops and the ordination of priests. Sacrosanctum Concillium extended the opportunities for concelebration, but there is no direct link between the Byzantine tradition and this change in the Roman rite. In fact, there are several substantive differences: in the Byzantine rite, each concelebrant must be at the altar, in full Eucharistic vestments; in the new Roman rite, concelebrants can be away from the altar, and not even in full vestments. Kelleher calls these "mob concelebrations", and recalls a scene in Rome in 1976, when some 700 priests concelebrated a single liturgy. Quoting an unnamed Eastern Patriarch (it was +Maximos V) who witnessed this scandalous event, "They go from one extreme to the other".

2. Administration of Holy Communion Under Both Species. The Christian East administers communion both of the Body and Blood, with the two elements mixed together in the chalice and administered on a golden spoon; that method was rejected by Vatican II at the outset. Fr. Serge notes that the unfortunate practice of administering communion "in the hand" (something completely alien, not to mention impossible in the Eastern rites) became common soon afterwards. He notes that most Eastern Christians regard this practice as scandalous, to the point that the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Greece had to prohibit it entirely at Roman Masses celebrated in that country.

3. Vernacular Liturgy. Fr. Serge notes that the situation in the East is far more complicated than the apologists for the Novus Ordo pretend. It is true that the original languages of the Eastern Church were Greek and Syriac, and that as time passed, it was translated into new languages as needed (Slavonic, Armenian, Coptic, etc).--but in almost every case, Eastern liturgies have been celebrated either in a hieratic language (Coptic, Ge'ez, Syriac, or Church Slavonic) connected to the history and culture of particular peoples, or in a hieratic form of a vernacular language (e.g., Greek). He points out that the Eastern Churches have generally tried to make translations that were at the same time, understandable and sacral, using sacral idioms throughout. According to Fr. Serge, "No Eastern Church would tolerate the sort of language produced by ICEL; ICEL's inspiration could not have come from the Christian East."

4. Multiple Eucharistic Prayers. Fr. Serge begins by noting that the Eastern liturgies have several Eucharistic prayers (anaphora), but that even before Vatican II, the same could be said of the Roman rite, for the Preface is part of the Eucharistic prayer, and the 1962 Missal lists no fewer than fifteen different Prefaces. And he points out that other Western rites, such as the Mozerabic, have even greater variety (to the point where one has to question whether the Mozerabic rite even has a fixed Eucharistic prayer).

In selecting alternative Eucharistic prayers for the Novus Ordo, the Concillium deliberately avoided using anything derived from either the Basil or Chrysostom liturgies. The Second Eucharistic Prayer is sometimes claimed to be Eastern, because of its alleged authorship by St. Hippolytus, but Hippolytus of Rome is unknown in the Christian East, was a bishop of the Roman Church, and in any case, any relationship between the current Eucharistic prayer
and the Hippolytan canon is vague at best.

Having covered all the bases, Fr. Serge Kelleher now explores the ongoing task of the liturgical movement. He agrees with the statement that, "there must be a reform of the reform", but what does that mean? First of all, he cautions against any undue haste because of the potentially catastrophic pastoral consequences. Rather, he calls in the near term for a revival of the liturgical movement, according to its original principles and objectives:
fidelity to the Church, reverence for the Liturgy, study and publication of biblical and patristic sources, popularization of the Liturgy of the Hours, rediscovery and renewal of authentic liturgical music, iconography and architecture, and a parallel monastic revival. He also calls on Latin Christians to develop, in accordance with the call of Pope John Paul II, a more profound awareness of the theology, liturgy, spirituality and discipline of the
Eastern Churches. He notes,



He asks that those interested in a sound liturgical movement work to make the Eastern liturgies more open and available to Western Christians, "for the benefit of a more complete understanding of Catholic worship. The Novus Ordo represents a turning away from the Christian East; a greater awareness of the Christian East can be most salutary". He notes that, because it developed in the eclectic environment of "New Rome", which combined Roman, Greek and Semitic culture into an harmonious synthesis, the Byzantine Liturgy is the only Catholic Tradition not tied to a particular culture. This, he argues, is why the Byzantine Tradition is able to take root in otherwise highly diverse cultures, and that "in a time when there is justified concern for the 'inculturation' of the Faith in diverse cultures, the Byzantine example deserves attention."

Fr. Serge quotes Dom Lambert Beauduin's principle that "one cannot reform that which one does not know". For thirty years, the Novus Ordo has had a virtual stranglehold on Western liturgical celebration. He calls, as a necessary precondition for a reform of the reform, real pluralism in the Latin Church: not just the Novus Ordo in Latin and vernacular versions, supplemented by the Tridentine rite, but also greater use of all the extant Western liturgies: Mozerabic, Ambrosian, and the different monastic liturgies--Carmelite, Cistercian, Dominican, Premonstratensian, etc. He calls for much wider use of the indult for the Tridentine rite using the 1962 missal, because "one cannot possibly understand the liturgical movement and the decree Sacrosanctum Concillium without being familiar with the Rite of the Mass. However, he does call, as an immediate measure, for the translation of the 1962 Missal into proper vernacular versions:



At the same time, he calls for a complete rejection of the ICEL translation of the Novus Ordo Missal, and its replacement with one that accurately reflects the Latin text and uses proper sacral idiom, resulting in a Mass suitable for use throughout the English-speaking world. There could also be, he notes, specific variations for the UK, the US, Australia and elsewhere. This could be accompanied by a restoration of versus apsidem orientation for the priest, though, he notes, this will take some pastoral sensitivity so that the people fully understand the import of the change. And, finally, he recommends restoration of Gregorian Chant as normative for the Church, and the encouragement of good cantors and choirs. But, finally, he recognizes that these are all interim measures, and that true liturgical reform will require many years of patient dedication on the part of all those who love the authentic Tradition of Catholic worship.

The lack of substantial epiclesis is a major issue with the Trent liturgy according to several Orthodox sources. (Rev. Fr. Schmemman; St. Tikhon) So much so that the WRO add an explicit post-institution narrative epiclesis. It's a discomforting issue for many byzantines.

The 16th century reformers thought they were re-creating the early church. Reforms always come about as bringing back practices of the early church

This is how the tradition of the church is destroyed, it is in the name of the "early church".

To suggest that the intelligent, humble and saintly Pope Paul VI was duped and deceived by a canonical band of "loose cannons" under the leadership of Archbishop Bugnini is, I find, quite despicable, and so does Fr. Robert Taft. Enough said.

Fr Kimel, what is a typical Mass, and what is a typical Catholic congregation in the U.S.? Indeed, I have found many different levels of beauty, inspiration and devotion as well as the simply banal in both. "Star differs from star in beauty and intensity", or something like that. It's always tempting to caricaturize, and it's easy to do. I've experienced the monks at St Joseph's Abbey in Spencer, MA celebrate the Novus Ordo with dignity, devotion and extraordinary beauty, accompanied by guitars, no less. The liturgies of the Catholic Church are equal in dignity, importance, antiquity and beauty, and all have developed quite organically. To say otherwise is a crime. Stop the Latin bashing, guys.

I have no doubt that all the rites of the Church are also equal in "right." But one wouldn't know it from 1969 to July 2007, when the idea that the Traditional Rites were abrogated was attempted to be forced down the faithful's throats. In fact, it is still often presented as such by most of the Latin bishops,

And have I succeeded in stating them without violating the ruling of our Irish Melkite brother?