Cardinal Ratzinger’s English is fantastic (as this video shows).
It’s incorrect to say new Churches must be constructed with table altars.
“…there are, in the core of the Church’s sacramental teaching and experience, good contentions and corollary arguments to be made for both practices.” —Archbishop Naumann
A $12,000 reward will be given to anyone who can produce a Vatican II document mentioning “celebration facing the people.”
His assertion that “smoking out enemies” is best done by appointing them to high positions in the Vatican is absurd.
The people deserve to know the truth. It is time for ignorance to end so that the faithful may develop informed opinions.
They will assume—and why shouldn’t they?—that “approved by the USCCB” applies to the hymns and songs…
What did the saints say about celebrating the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass facing East?
The Bishop of Little Rock has sent a letter (14 July 2016) forbidding his priests to celebrate Mass “ad orientem.”
Most Rev’d Serratelli says the current rubrics “reflect the real possibility that the celebrant might be facing away from the assembly.”
Three common misconceptions about the Mass and “ad orientem” worship.
If Cardinal Nichols had simply sent a letter saying why he prefers “versus populum,” I believe that would have been a better choice.
“No preference is expressed in the liturgical legislation for either position.”
Breathtaking statements from the Vatican’s chief liturgist who—while on retreat—goes 72 hours without food or water.
Highlights from Cardinal Sarah’s Lecture at Sacra Liturgia UK 2016
“Adoremus Bulletin” has uploaded a translation of the CDW Prefect’s document.
Fourteen (14) practical ideas for how a priest might transform his celebration of the Ordinary Form
A reader from Indonesia kindly sent us these…
The phrase “ad populum conversus” does appear in the postconciliar books, and no amount of polemical articles can change this fact.
Some weren’t happy with Bill Murray’s opinions on the Latin Mass, and a certain editor—in his zeal to refute—made an egregious error.
Can AD ORIENTEM be excluded from the Novus Ordo? Vatican says: “Negatively, and in accordance with the following explanation.”
John Paul II leads the congregation facing the traditional way during his June 1999 visit to Poland.
These same exact rubrics have been found in Missals published in 1962, 1927, 1943, 1906, and 1886.
Could this be the missing link explaining why “versus populum” celebrations took over?
These images come to us from Msgr. Guido Marini’s Facebook page, which has more than 100,000 followers.
Pope Francis celebrating in this manner was a bit of a surprise, since members of his generation aren’t usually accustomed to “turning their backs on the people.”
The current Missal was put together with haste, and even the Vatican dicastery had to apologize for all the errors and typos contained in those early 1969 and 1970 directives, as Msgr. Schuler has pointed out.
The current rubrics tell the priest when to turn around and face the people, which would be superfluous if he were already facing them.
“There is nothing in the Council text about turning altars toward the people.” — Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
“The altar versus populum is not a new idea brought in by the reforms of Paul VI. The Mass could always be celebrated with the priest facing the people, as indeed it was in Rome and in many other places for centuries. True, it was not the usual way, but it did exist.” — Monsignor Richard J. Schuler
“In the encyclical Mediator Dei, Pius XII regarded as 'archeologists those who presumed to speak of the altar as a simple table.” — Newsletter of the Vatican Congregation of Divine Worship.
“The greatest problem of the new missal, at least in English-speaking countries, lay in the miserable translation that was imposed upon priests and people. Many prayers were so mistranslated that a student of first-year Latin would have done better.” — Msgr. Richard Schuler, 1984
