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The current rubrics tell the priest when to turn around and face the people, which would be superfluous if he were already facing them.
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.
“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
