Missal of 1969

BATTLEFIELD, the MASS

BATTLEFIELD, the MASS on January 4, 2025

Between the New Mass and the Old is war, 

Ending not with sweet talk, but blood and gore! 

“Take away the Mass, destroy the Church” is a famous quote attributed to Martin Luther (1483–1546). Perhaps he never said it, although it seems highly likely that he did, but in any case the quote is true, as Catholics could see in the aftermath of Vatican II. The very first of that Council’s 16 documents concerned the liturgy, by name “Sacrosanctum Concilium,” but the words of the text are thoroughly ambiguous. They can seem conservative but in fact they are designed to open the door to that liturgical revolution which in the aftermath of the Council virtually destroyed the Mass. Very soon after the – apparently – official imposition of Pope Paul’s New Mass in 1969, Archbishop Lefebvre said that if he had to introduce it in his newly founded Seminary of Econe, he might as well close the Seminary down within three weeks. Such is the anti-Catholic power of the “renewed” liturgy, for it is by attending Mass that most Catholics live their religion.

In fact, from 1969 until today, Pope Paul’s “renewed” liturgy turned the rite of Mass into the central battlefield of the great war of the Faith between the unchanging Catholicism of Tradition and the constantly evolving Revolution of Protestant-Liberal-Modernism. And it is still the central battlefield, as shown by the perseverance of Pope Francis in his insane efforts to obliterate the Latin Mass altogether. An excellent article by a French layman, Yves de Lassus, is summarised below. For access to the original article, much fuller, in English translation, see:   

https://respicestellam.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Letter-to-Friends-of-AFS-Jan-22.pdf 

On December 18 2021, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (CCD) published a note entitled Responsa ad dubia  responding to questions about the application of the Motu Proprio Traditionis Custodes . Many of the faithful were distraught by the harshness of this response. But from the outset, the intention of the Motu Proprio was clear; the response of the Congregation only makes explicit a firmness already expressed in Traditionis Custodes . For the CCD, the Mass is the “sharing of the one broken bread” and the “memorial of the Passover”. To attend Mass means “to participate in the Eucharistic table”.  It is never recalled that the Mass is a sacrifice,  the unbloody renewal of the one sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. 

This wiping out of the sacrificial character is accentuated by the purpose that the CCD attributes to the Mass. For the CCD, the purpose of the Mass is unity. The first objective of Traditionis Custodes  and consequently of the Mass itself is to ” continue the constant search for ecclesial communion.”  Not one of the four traditional purposes of the Mass is recalled. For the CCD, the Mass is above all a manifestation of unity among men instead of an act entirely turned towards God. Thus it is clear that the general intention of the CCD response is to put an end once and for all to the use of the traditional Missal. The old rite, says the CCD, “is not part of the ordinary life of the Church.” Moreover, the CCD insists that “the liturgical reform is irreversible”. Any return to the old rite is therefore meant to be impossible.

We must not hide from the truth. The Holy See has gone to war against the Traditional Rite with the desire to completely eradicate it from the life of the Church. It is a real war between two different conceptions of the Mass and two radically opposed conceptions of the Church and the Christian life. We are even legitimately entitled to wonder if they are the same religion. Thus it is an illusion to hope that the Holy See will soften its position if only we hold a conciliatory discourse. No! Rome wants the end of the Traditional Mass, whereas we want to maintain the Tridentine Rite, because it is willed by God Himself. In the face of this war between the two rites, it is no longer possible to put off a decision. We must choose one side or the other.

Which side? We must condemn error, even if it comes from the Holy See. The Mass is first and foremost a sacrifice offered to God for a purpose that is at once adoration, thanksgiving, propitiation and expiation. No pope can ever abrogate the bull of St. Pius V authorizing the use of the Traditional Missal in perpetuity.

The Mass is in a situation which, in many ways, resembles that experienced by Our Lord during his Passion: the supreme Authority condemns it to death. But during the Passion, Our Lady did not revolt: She remained unfailingly close to Her Son, silent and recollected. No doubt She prayed for the executioners. With regard to the Latin Mass, let us adopt the same attitude: let us remain unfailingly attached to it, even if it has just been condemned to death. 

Kyrie eleison 

Distinguish, Discriminate

Distinguish, Discriminate on December 17, 2016

If the evidence, apparently serious, for Eucharistic miracles taking place within the Novus Ordo Mass (NOM) is to be believed – and such miracles may even be happening frequently, one of the latest seeming to come from Legnica, also in Poland (see here) on Christmas Day of 2013 – then indeed some of us may need to do some rethinking. Here is how one reader put it: “God cannot contradict himself, so his miracles cannot contradict his Church’s teaching. But the NOM does depart from essential Catholic doctrine on the Mass. Therefore either the miracles are false or the NOM is from God, in which case what is the justification for Traditionalists clinging to Tradition? For if the NOM at the heart of the Newchurch is confirmed by miracles, then the Newchurch is also confirmed by God, and the Newpopes, and I have to obey them. I cannot pick and choose, can I?” Yes, you can, and not only you can, but you must, in order to fulfil your absolute duty to keep the Faith.

That is because another name for what you call “picking and choosing” is “distinguishing.” All of us need to distinguish all day long. That is common sense, and that is what St Thomas Aquinas does from beginning to end of his miraculous Summa Theologiae. Let us take a closer look at our friend’s argument.

The basic bone of contention is the NOM. The NOM is a rite of Mass, a book of hundreds if not a thousand pages, containing many things. From a Catholic standpoint the rite as a whole is unquestionably bad, because it radically changes the concept of the Mass from being a propitiatory sacrifice centred on God to being a community meal centred on man. As such, since most Catholics live their religion by attending Mass, then when its concept changes, their religion in effect changes. That is why the NOM is the principal destroyer of the true Church, and the main engine of the Newchurch. That is why the NOM as a whole is not only bad, but very bad indeed.

But that does not mean that all its parts, as parts, are bad. As parts, some are still Catholic because they had to be, in order to deceive the mass of priests when the NOM was introduced in 1969, that it was not essentially different from the Tridentine rite of Mass, especially in the Consecration. Otherwise they would have refused it, and it could not have done its work of destroying the Church. So the NOM is, as to its parts, part good and part bad, while as a whole, it is ambiguous, treacherous, a crooked piece of work.

However, as for men, “to the pure all things are pure” ( Titus I, 15), and so to innocent souls not yet aware of its intrinsic danger for the Faith, it can by its Consecration and good parts, still give grace and spiritual nourishment, especially when these are less strangled by a priest making the ambiguities as Catholic as possible. And as for God, he “writes straight with crooked lines,” says the proverb, and so the bad parts of the NOM need not stop him from working miracles with the Catholic parts to nourish the innocent and to warn the guilty.

Therefore on the one hand the NOM as a whole is very bad, and Traditionalists are absolutely necessary to the Church to witness to its badness, and to make available a true Mass for when souls wake up to the NOM’s badness, as they do at different times and different speeds, so that such souls can keep the Faith and last out the crisis. On the other hand the NOM is in parts still good enough to nourish innocent souls and to enable God to work miracles, also for souls’ nourishment or for their warning. God is not thereby confirming either the NOM as a whole, or the Newchurch as a whole, or the Newpopes as a whole, but he is relying on me to use my brain and the Faith which he gave me to discern good from bad. He wants no mindless robots in his glorious Heaven!

Kyrie eleison.

Against N.O.M.

Against N.O.M. on August 27, 2016

The principle is clear in theory: to follow Our Lord we need, in the immortal words of St Augustine, to “slay the errors but love the erring.” That means that we should never so slay the errors as to slay also the erring (i.e. those who are in error, unless they are dangerous and incorrigible), and we should never so love the erring as to love also their errors. In practice it can be all too easy to slide from slaying the error into slaying the erring, or to slide from loving the erring into loving their error. In different words: “The Church is uncompromising in principle because she believes, she is tolerant in practice because she loves.The enemies of the Church are tolerant in principle because they do not believe, and uncompromising in practice because they do not love.” That is well said.

In case anybody still thinks that the author of these “Comments” slides from compassion for the misled sheep within the Novus Ordo into love of the errors of the New Mass of Paul VI, here are extracts from the letter of an older reader whose own bitter experience has led him to the conclusion that Novus Ordo Catholics do not deserve to be given too much benefit of the doubt. He has obviously run into some of the worst of the Newchurch. By its fruits . . .

I was a typical grade school child in a parish of 2500 families in a neighbourhood that was nearly 60% Catholic.All of us were formed in the old religion, and when the Conciliar Revolution began destroying the Church in the 1970’s we all of us had to sense that something was wrong. All Catholics have a duty to be faithful to Tradition and to find out where it lies, for instance in the reading materials available to everybody. For 50 years I myself have pleaded, begged and prayed for my Catholic friends and family to read the things that I have read, but they simply do not want to.The great majority enjoy the Conciliar religion: divorce and easy annulments, accommodating preachers, feminism, democracy, adultery, homosexuality and LUV hold them fast to the Novus Ordo, just the opposite of a love of truth.

I would say I know the Novus Ordo mentality because for over two years I came into close contact with Novus Ordo judges and priests and laity. I can assure you that it is not love of truth that motivates them. These Church authorities can be trusted to do exactly what nearly all, if not all, Novus Ordo catholics want them to do, which is to ignore their sinful lives. It seems as though the only ‘sinners’ they dare to admonish, instruct or counsel are smokers, polluters, insensitive Tradcats and overpopulators. Remember, more than 90% of married Catholics use birth control and teach their children to do the same.The Novus Ordo has become a global organisation of conscience placation and novelty on a grand scale. Novus Ordo Catholics really do believe that everybody goes to Heaven. To ‘work out their salvation in fear and trembling’ (Phil.II, 12) is not a thought they entertain.

Birth control was in modern times a turning point from the will of God to the will of man. Not to use birth control for those living in a big city can seem almost impossible, but who got it wrong? God, or the modern city? God gave to his Church in 1968 a great chance to stay on track when he inspired a reluctant Paul VI to remain faithful to the Church’ s unchangeable doctrine, but a mass of churchmen were promptly unfaithful to the Pope. And the result was that “organisation of conscience placation” denounced above. And who can deny that the replacement of the true sacrifice of the Mass played from 1969 a huge part in Catholics giving up sacrificial lives to get to Heaven, in order to enjoy the easy life and go to Hell? What a responsibility of the priests!

Kyrie eleison.

Apples Rotting

Apples Rotting on May 14, 2011

In two ways a rotten apple may cast a little light in the darkness of today’s eclipsed Church. Firstly, we do not wait for every part of an apple to be rotten before we call it rotten as a whole, yet parts of it are still not rotten. In answer then to the question whether the apple is rotten, we must make a double distinction: as a whole, yes; in these parts, yes; in those parts, no. And secondly, while apple is not rot and rot is not apple, yet the rot is inseparable from its apple and cannot exist without it. Let us apply the first part of this common sense to the Novus Ordo Mass and the “Conciliar church,” the second part to the “Conciliar church” and the Papacy.

As for the New Mass, it is rotten as a whole by its Conciliar man-centredness, but while some parts are clearly not Catholic (e.g. the Offertory), other parts are Catholic (e.g. the

Kyrie eleison.). Because it is rotten as a whole and slowly makes Catholics into Protestants, it is not fit to be attended, but that part which is the Consecration may be Catholic and valid. So one can say of the Novus Ordo Mass neither that it is valid so it can be attended, nor that it cannot be attended so it is invalid. In truth it may be valid in its essential part, but that is not a sufficient reason to expose one’s faith to the danger of attending it as a whole.

Similarly, today’s Church is rotten as a whole insofar as Conciliarism is widespread throughout it, but that does not mean that every single part of the Church is rotten with Conciliarism. So it is as wrong to condemn any part still Catholic because of the Conciliar whole, as it is wrong to excuse the Conciliar whole because of those parts still Catholic. To fit one’s mind to the reality, one must distinguish both between the different parts, and between the whole and the parts.

And if we apply to today’s Church also the second part of the comparison with a rotten apple, we can say that it is genuinely useful to speak of two churches, the “Conciliar church” and the Catholic Church, because Conciliarism is to be found in real life all through the Church, although in their pure state Conciliarism and Catholicism exclude one another like apple and rot. But they are not in real life separable any more than are the rot from its apple or any parasite from its host. In real life there is only one Church, the Catholic Church, suffering today all over from the Conciliar rot.

Therefore as to a Conciliar Pope, it is a genuinely useful way of speaking to say that he is one head of two churches, because by his words and actions, sometimes Catholic, sometimes Conciliar, he places himself all the time at the head of both the Catholic Church and its Conciliar rot. But that is not to say that he is the head of two churches separate in reality. It is to say that he is head of both the Catholicism and the Conciliarism in the one real Catholic Church presently disfigured all over by the Conciliar rot.

And why in Heaven’s name are our Church leaders so enamoured of the Conciliar rot? Because of the modern longing for liberty. That is another story. But meanwhile we must pray with might and main for Benedict XVI that he may see once more the difference between apple and rot!

Kyrie eleison.

Modern Art – II

Modern Art – II on July 17, 2010

By its very ugliness, modern art points to the existence and goodness of God. After three months (cf. EC 144), let us return to this paradox, in the hope that if any soul admits the common sense difference between beauty and ugliness in art, that soul may be helped further to see that if God did not exist, that difference would not exist either.

The word “art” means skill, or the products of human skill. It can cover paintings, drawings, sculpture, fashions in clothing, music, architecture, and so on. The expression “modern art” usually refers to paintings and sculpture in particular, as generated from the early 1900’s onwards by a movement of artists who deliberately rejected, and reject, all standards and measures of beauty as understood before the 20th century. The difference between pre-modern and modern art is as real and clear as the difference here in London between the classical Tate Museum on Millbank, and the Tate Modern, a completely new museum, floated ten years ago a short boat-ride downstream from its progenitor on the opposite bank of the Thames. It is as though modern art cannot sit still under the same roof as pre-modern art. They war on one another, just as do old church buildings and the New Mass.

Now modern art in this sense is characterized by its ugliness. Common sense agrees here with the Communist leader Kruschev, who is reported to have commented on a modern art exhibition in Russia, “A donkey could do better with its tail.” And what is ugliness? Disharmony. In Arianna Huffington’s admirable book, “Picasso, Creator and Destroyer,” she demonstrated how each time Picasso fell in love with another of his six (main) women, his calmer paintings reflected something of their natural beauty, but as soon as he fell out of love again, his rage tore that beauty to pieces in “masterpieces” of modern art. She shows how the pattern repeats itself in Picasso like clockwork!

Thus beauty in art comes from a harmony in the soul, be it a merely earthly harmony, whereas ugliness proceeds from a disharmony in the soul, as of hate. But harmony has no need of disharmony, on the contrary, whereas disharmony, as the word suggests, presupposes some harmony on which it is, essentially, making war. Thus harmony is prior to disharmony, and every disharmony testifies to some harmony. But more profoundly harmonious than any paintings of lovely women can be paintings of the Madonna, because the harmony in the soul of the artist painting the Mother of God can go far higher and deeper than the harmony inspired by any merely human model, however lovely. Why? Because the beauty of the Madonna derives from her closeness to God whose divine harmony – perfect simplicity and unity – infinitely surpasses the human harmony of the loveliest of mere creatures.

Therefore poor modern art points to the harmony it lacks, and all harmony points to God. Then let nobody resort to the ugliness of modern architecture to house the Tridentine Mass. One would guess he was wanting, or waiting, to go back to the disharmony of the Novus Ordo Mass!

Kyrie eleison.

“Tristan” Chord

“Tristan” Chord on October 24, 2009

Remarkable confirmation of the Society of St. Pius X’s balanced position on the validity of the Newchurch sacraments appeared last week in the bulletin of a fighting Gaul, “Courrier de Tychique.” From a “reliable source” it appears there that Freemasonry, ancient enemy of the Church, planned for the Conciliar Revolution to invalidate the Catholic sacraments, not by alteration of their Form, rendering them automatically invalid, but rather by an ambiguity of their Rite as a whole, undermining in the long run the Minister’s necessary sacramental Intention.

The “reliable source” is a Frenchman who heard directly from a venerable old priest some of what Cardinal Lienart on his deathbed confessed to the priest. No doubt fearing Hell, the Cardinal begged the priest to reveal it to the world, and thus released him from the Confessional seal. The priest was thenceforth discreet in public, but in private he was more forthcoming as to what the Cardinal revealed to him of Freemasonry’s three-point plan for the destruction of the Church. Whether or not he entered Freemasonry at the precocious age of 17, the Cardinal rendered it supreme service when only two days after the opening of Vatican II he wrenched the Council off course by demanding irregularly that the carefully prepared Traditional documents be rejected altogether.

According to the Cardinal, Freemasonry’s first objective at the Council was to break the Mass by so altering the rite as to undermine in the long run the celebrant’s Intention: “to do what the Church does.” Gradually the Rite was to induce priests and laity alike to take the Mass rather for a “memorial” or “sacred meal” than for a propitiatory sacrifice. The second objective was to break the Apostolic Succession by a new Rite of Consecration that would eventually undermine the bishops’ power of Orders, both by a new Form not automatically invalidating but ambiguous enough to sow doubt, and above all by a new Rite which as a whole would eventually dissolve the consecrating bishop’s sacramental Intention. This would have the advantage of breaking the Apostolic Succession so gently that nobody would even notice. Is this not exactly what many believing Catholics are now afraid of?

Howsoever it may be with the “reliable source,” in any case today’s Newchurch Rites of Mass and Episcopal Consecration correspond exactly to the Masonic plan as unveiled by the Cardinal. Ever since these new Rites were introduced in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, many serious Catholics have refused to believe that they could be used validly. Alas, they are not automatically invalid (how much simpler if they were!). They are worse! Their sacramental Form is Catholic enough to persuade many a celebrant that they can be validly used, but they are designed as a whole to be so ambiguous and so suggestive of a non-Catholic interpretation as to invalidate the sacrament over time by corrupting the Intention of any celebrant either too “obedient” or insufficiently watching and praying.

Rites thus valid enough to get themselves accepted by nearly all Catholics in the short term, but ambiguous enough to invalidate the sacraments in the long term, constitute a trap satanically subtle. To avoid it, Catholics must on the one hand shun all contact with these Rites, but on the other hand they must not discredit their sound Catholic instincts by exaggerated theological accusations which depart from sound Catholic doctrine. It is not always an easy balance to keep.

Kyrie eleison.