We didn’t take my mother to Latin Mass unwillingly, but indeed eagerly, as we began to fall in love with the Mass of the ages, first promulgated by Pope St. Gregory the Great in the sixth century, and then codified by Pope St. Pius V with his Bull Quo Primum in 1570.  I read and reread Christopher Ferrara’s monumental book The Great Façade-Vatican II and the Regime of Novelty in the Roman Catholic Church (2004) exposing and denouncing the errors of Vatican II.  I read dozens of books defending Catholic tradition against the encroachments of the Modernists. Still, my mother told me a year or two before she died that: “You aren’t Latin Mass Catholics, you are Novus Ordo Catholics.”  Those words stung me; but I had to agree that if we still went to the illegal Mass fabricated by Protestants at Vatican Council II, then we prayed and worshiped dishonestly.

Monsignor Robert Skeris from Sheboygan Wisconsin, who buried my mother, had told me that the new order of the Mass crafted at Vatican II was an illicit Mass.  Not permitted and thus Illegal according to Pope St. Pius V’s Bull Quo Primum.  Father Skeris had rejected the new Mass from its inception, and has only ever prayed the Gregorian Rite, the Mass of our grandparents, all our ancestors and all the great saints.  Father Skeris reminded me that Our Lord would be displeased with me for continuing to go to the Modernist Mass of Vatican II if I had finally understood that I should worship Him the way the great saintly popes said we should.

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In 1570 Pope St. Pius V had written in Quo Primum that “From the very first, upon Our elevation to the chief Apostleship, We gladly turned our mind and energies and directed all our thoughts to those matters which concerned the preservation of a pure liturgy, and We strove with God’s help, by every means in our power, to accomplish this purpose.” He wrote that he had assembled a committee of scholars to “restore the Roman Missal to the pristine form and rite of the holy Fathers, that priests may know what prayers to use, and what rites and ceremonies they are to observe henceforward in the celebration of Masses…It shall be unlawful henceforth and forever throughout the Christian world to sing or to read Masses according to any formula other than that of this Missal published by Us…We order and enjoin under pain of our displeasure that nothing be added to Our newly published Missal, nothing omitted therefrom, and nothing whatsoever altered therein.”

“We specifically command each and every patriarch, administrator and all other persons of whatsoever ecclesiastical dignity, be they even Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church or possessed of any other rank or preeminence, and We order them by virtue of holy obedience to sing or to read the Mass according to the rite and manner and norm herein laid down by Us, and henceforward to discontinue and utterly discard all other rubrics and rites of other missals, howsoever ancient, which they have been accustomed to follow, and not to presume in celebrating Mass to introduce any ceremonies or recite any prayers other than those contained in this Missal.”

“Accordingly, no one whosoever is permitted to infringe or rashly contravene this notice of Our permission, statute, ordinance, command, direction, grant, indult, declaration, will, decree and prohibition.  Should any person venture to do so, let him understand that he will incur the wrath of almighty God and of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.”  Pope St. Pius V, 1570, Council of Trent.

The Church had perennially taught us “Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi.”  [As you pray, so will you believe]. In the late 1960s many traditional Catholics saw that the new Mass was a startling departure from the theology of the Council of Trent. They feared that should Pope Paul VI implement the Novus Ordo Mass, the faithful would begin to lose their Catholic Faith by praying a liturgy acceptable to Protestants. Mindful of this great danger several concerned Catholic laymen and eminent clerics in Italy decided to make an appeal to the pope against his violating St. Pius V’s Bull Quo Primum.

The issue of the ongoing liturgical revolution in the Catholic Church became critical on April 28, 1969, when Paul VI announced the Novus Ordo Missae.  It was the last chance for action within the traditional channels of ecclesiastical authority.  Somehow the pope had to be dissuaded from implementing this substitute for the traditional Catholic Mass of the Roman Rite.  This attempt, ultimately unsuccessful, was done with A Brief Critical Study of the New Order of Mass…or what has become known as the Ottaviani Intervention.

On September 25, 1969, Cardinals Alfredo Ottaviani and Antonio Bacci sent a letter to the pope imploring him not to implement the new order of the Mass.   They wrote: “It is evident that the Novus Ordo has no intention of presenting the faith as taught by the Council of Trent, to which, nonetheless, the Catholic conscience is bound forever.  With the promulgation of the Novus Ordo, the loyal Catholic is thus face with a most tragic alternative.”  This statement, made with absolute and definitive clarity, from Section VI of the Ottaviani Intervention, was made in response to what might be considered one of the most critical moments in the history of the Catholic Church since the original Pentecost Sunday.  The traditional worship of the Roman Church was about to be replaced.

I will give my readers several passages taken from Section III, one of eight sections in this thirty-page study: 

“The Mass is fundamentally a sacrifice, and this is its essential objective. It is essential to the nature of sacrifice that it be pleasing to God and accepted by Him as a sacrifice.  In the state of original sin, no sacrifice would have the right to be acceptable to God.  The only sacrifice that has the right to be accepted is that of Christ, which is why the Offertory immediately identifies the Sacrifice of the Mass with the Sacrifice of Christ.”

“However, the Novus Ordo Mass distorts and degrades the Offertory, making it into a kind of exchange of gifts between man and God.  Man brings the bread, and God turns it into the bread of life; man brings the wine, and God turns it into a spiritual drink:  “Blessed are you, Lord, God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread (or wine) which we offer you, fruit of the earth (or of the vine) and work of human hands, which will become for us the bread of life (or spiritual drink).”

“It is needless to point out the absolute ambiguity of the two formulas “bread of life” and “spiritual” drink, which could mean anything.  Here we find again the same grave error as seen in the definition of the Mass: there it involved Christ present only spiritually among His own; here it involves bread and wife “spiritually” (but not substantially) changed.”

“In the preparation of the oblations, a similar game of ambiguities is played with the suppression of two stupendous prayers: Deus qui humanae substantiae and Offerimus tibi Domine.  The first of these two prayers declares: ‘O God, Who wondrously created the dignity of human nature and even more wondrously restored it.’ It is a reference to man’s primordial state of innocence and his current state as one redeemed by the blood of Christ. It is a discreet and brief recapitulation of the entire economy of Sacrifice from Adam to the present moment.”

“The second of these two prayers, which is the conclusion of the Offertory, expresses the propitiatory nature of the Sacrifice. It requests that the chalice might ascend “with a sweet fragrance” before the Divine Majesty, and imploring His clemency it marvelously underscores the same sacrificial economy.  These two prayers are suppressed in the Novus Ordo Mass.  By suppressing the constant reference to God in the Eucharistic Prayer, there is no longer any distinction at all between a sacrifice that comes from God and one that comes from man.

“If the keystone of an arch is removed, a scaffold must be built to prop up the arch.  By suppressing these true objectives of the Mass, fictitious ones are invented instead. Thus, we see the trite gestures intended to emphasize the unity between the priest and the faithful, and of the faithful among themselves.  There is an overlapping which immediately becomes ridiculous; the offering collected for the poor and for the church is overlapped with the offering of the Host which is destined for the Sacrifice.”

“Through this confusion, the fundamental distinctiveness of the Host is completely lost, and participation in the immolation of this Victim thus becomes nothing more than a gathering of philanthropists or a charity banquet.”

Over a cup of coffee today in downtown Castle Rock a few women from our weekly prayer group told me that I should share these truths I had learned with my friends and associates, or I was not their friend at all.  One of those women had sent me this list of 62 reasons to reject the Novus Ordo Mass of Pope Paul VI.  I fear meeting my Judge without having discharged a duty to speak this truth which I have learned late in life. We will now print those 62 Reasons to Reject the Novus Ordo Missal in a flyer accompanying this newsletter.  This list comes from a Traditional Catholic website. This list reads very much like the writings of the late Michael Davies, who also printed the booklet Liturgical Shipwreck in 1995 [TAN].  Liturgical outrages and abuses have gotten even worse since this list first got published, I think, some decades ago.

We send most of our mission donations to the Ukrainian Catholic Byzantine priests and nuns who pray the Divine Liturgies of St. Basil the Great or St. John Chrysostom.  Pope St. Pius V allowed the Byzantine Churches to have an exemption from Quo Primum because of the great antiquity in their practice of saying Mass.  Ukrainian Catholic Bishop Irynej Bilyk told me many years ago that the Ukrainian Catholic Bishops attending Vatican II quickly packed their bags and departed Rome when they learned what mischief was afoot. For further reading I recommend Is Tradition Excommunicated?  Angelus Press 1993.

1. Because the New Mass is not an unequivocal Profession of the Catholic Faith (which the traditional Mass is), it is ambiguous and with a Protestant flavor. Therefore, since we pray as we believe, it follows that we cannot pray with the New Mass in Protestant fashion and still believe as Catholics!

2. Because the changes were not just slight ones but actually "deal with a fundamental renovation ... a total change ... a new creation." (Msgr. A. Bugnini, co-author of the New Mass)1. Because the New Mass is not an unequivocal Profession of the Catholic Faith (which the traditional Mass is), it is ambiguous and with a Protestant flavor. Therefore, since we pray as we believe, it follows that we cannot pray with the New Mass in Protestant fashion and still believe as Catholics!

3. Because the New Mass leads us to think "that truths ... can be changed or ignored without infidelity to that sacred deposit of doctrine to which the Catholic Faith is bound forever."

4. Because the New Mass represents "a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent" which, in fixing the "canons," provided an "insurmountable barrier to any heresy against the integrity of the Mystery."

5. Because the difference between the two is not simply one of mere detail or just modification of ceremony, but "all that is of perennial value finds only a minor place (in the New Mass), if it subsists at all."

6. Because "Recent reforms have amply demonstrated that fresh changes in the liturgy could lead to nothing but complete bewilderment in the faithful who already show signs of uneasiness and lessening of Faith."

7. Because in times of confusion such as now, we are guided by the words of our Lord: "By their fruits you shall know them." Fruits of the New Mass are: 30% decrease in Sunday Mass attendance in U.S. (NY Times, 5/24/75), 43% decrease in France (Cardinal Marty), 50% decrease in Holland (NY Times, 1/5/76).

8. Because "amongst the best of the clergy the practical result (of the New Mass) is an agonizing crisis of conscience..."

9. Because in less than seven years after the introduction of the New Mass, priests in the world decreased from 413,438 to 243,307 - almost 50%! (Holy See Statistics)

10. Because "The pastoral reasons adduced to support such a grave break with tradition ... do not seem to us sufficient."

11. Because the New Mass does not manifest Faith in the Real Presence of our Lord - the Traditional Mass manifests it unmistakably.

12. Because the New Mass confuses the REAL Presence of Christ in the Eucharist with His MYSTICAL Presence among us (approximating Protestant doctrine).

13. Because the New Mass blurs what ought to be a sharp difference between the HIERARCHIC Priesthood and the common priesthood of the people (as does Protestantism).

14. Because the New Mass favors the heretical theory that it is THE FAITH of the people and not THE WORDS OF THE PRIEST which makes Christ present in the Eucharist.

15. Because the insertion of the Lutheran "Prayer of the Faithful" in the New Mass follows and puts forth the Protestant error that all the people are priests.

16. Because the New Mass does away with the Confiteor of the priest, makes it collective with the people, thus promoting Luther's refusal to accept the Catholic teaching that the priest is judge, witness and intercessor with God.

17. Because the New Mass gives us to understand that the people concelebrate with the priest - which is against Catholic theology!

18. Because six Protestant ministers collaborated in making up the New Mass: George, Jasper, Shepherd, Kunneth, Smith and Thurian.

19. Because just as Luther did away with the Offertory - since it very clearly expressed the sacrificial, propitiatory character of the Mass - so also the inventors of the New Mass did away with it, reducing it to a simple Preparation of the Gifts.

20. Because enough Catholic theology has been removed that Protestants can, while keeping their antipathy for the True Roman Catholic Church, use the text of the New Mass without difficulty. Protestant Minister Thurian (co-consultor for the 'New Mass' project) said that a fruit of the New mass "will perhaps be that the non-Catholic communities will be able to celebrate the Lord's Supper using the same prayers as the Catholic Church." (La Croix, 4/30/69)

21. Because the narrative manner of the Consecration in the New Mass infers that it is only a memorial and not a true sacrifice (Protestant thesis)

22. Because by grave omissions, the New Mass leads us to believe that it is only a meal (Protestant doctrine) and not a sacrifice for the remission of sins (Catholic Doctrine).

23. Because the changes such as: table instead of altar; facing people instead of tabernacle; Communion in the hand, etc., emphasize Protestant doctrines (e.g., Mass is only a meal; priest only a president of the assembly; Eucharist is NOT the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, but merely a piece of bread, etc.)

24. Because Protestants themselves have said "the new Catholic Eucharistic prayers have abandoned the false (sic) perspective of sacrifice offered to God." (La Croix, 12/10/69)

25. Because we are faced with the dilemma: either we become Protestantized by worshipping with the New Mass, or else we preserve our Catholic Faith by adhering faithfully to the traditional Mass, the "Mass of All Time."

26. Because the New Mass was made in accordance with the Protestant definition of the Mass: "The Lord's Supper or Mass is a sacred synaxis or assembly of the people of God which gathers together under the presidency of the priest to celebrate the memorial of the Lord." (Par. 7, Intro. to the New Missal, defining the New Mass, 4/6/69)

27. Because by means of ambiguity, the New Mass pretends to please Catholics while pleasing Protestants; thus it is "double-tongued" and offensive to God who abhors any kind of hypocrisy: "Cursed be ... the double-tongued for they destroy the peace of many." (Ecclesiasticus 28:13)

28. Because beautiful, familiar Catholic hymns which have inspired people for centuries, have been thrown out and replaced with new hymns strongly Protestant in sentiment, further deepening the already distinct impression that one is no longer attending a Catholic function.

29. Because the New Mass contains ambiguities subtly favoring heresy, which is more dangerous than if it were clearly heretical since a half-heresy half resembles the Truth!

30. Because Christ has only one Spouse, the Catholic Church, and her worship service cannot also serve religions that are at enmity with her.

31. Because the New Mass follows the format of Cranmer's heretical Anglican Mass, and the methods used to promote it follow precisely the methods of the English heretics.

32. Because Holy Mother Church canonized numerous English Martyrs who were killed because they refused to participate in a Mass such as the New Mass!

33. Because Protestants who once converted to Catholicism are scandalized to see that the New Mass is the same as the one they attended as Protestants. One of them, Julien Green, asks: "Why did we convert?"

34. Because statistics show a great decrease in conversions to Catholicism following the use of the New Mass. Conversions, which were up to 100,000 a year in the U.S., have decreased to less than 10,000! And the number of people leaving the Church far exceeds those coming in.

35. Because the Traditional Mass has forged many saints. "Innumerable saints have been fed abundantly with the proper piety towards God by it ..." (Pope Paul VI, Const. Apost. Missale Romanum)

36. Because the nature of the New Mass is such as to facilitate profanations of the Holy Eucharist, which occur with a frequency unheard of with the Traditional Mass.

37. Because the New Mass, despite appearances, conveys a New Faith, not the Catholic Faith. It conveys Modernism and follows exactly the tactics of Modernism, using vague terminology in order to insinuate and advance error.

38. Because by introducing optional variations, the New Mass undermines the unity of the liturgy, with each priest liable to deviate as he fancies under the guise of creativity. Disorder inevitably results, accompanied by lack of respect and irreverence.

39. Because many good Catholic theologians, canonists and priests do not accept the New Mass, and affirm that they are unable to celebrate it in good conscience.

40. Because the New Mass has eliminated such things as: genuflections (only three remain), purification of the priest’s fingers in the chalice, preservation from all profane contact of priest's fingers after Consecration, sacred altar stone and relics, three altar clothes (reduced to one), all of which "only serve to emphasize how outrageously faith in the dogma of the Real Presence is implicitly repudiated."

41. Because the traditional Mass, enriched and matured by centuries of Sacred Tradition, was codified (not invented) by a Pope who was a saint, Pius V; whereas the New Mass was artificially fabricated by six Protestant ministers and Msgr. Annibale Bugnini suspect of being a Freemason.

42. Because the errors of the New Mass which are accentuated in the vernacular version are even present in the Latin text of the New Mass.

43. Because the New Mass, with its ambiguity and permissiveness, exposes us to the wrath of God by facilitating the risk of invalid consecrations: "Will priests of the near future who have not received the traditional formation, and who rely on the Novus Ordo Missae with the intention of 'doing what the Church does,' consecrate validly? One may be allowed to doubt it!"

44. Because the abolition of the Traditional Mass recalls the prophecy of Daniel 8:12: "And he was given power against the perpetual sacrifice because of the sins of the people" and the observation of St. Alphonsus de Liguori that because the Mass is the best and most beautiful thing which exists in the Church here below, the devil has always tried by means of heretics to deprive us of it.

45. Because in places where the Traditional Mass is preserved, the Faith and fervor of the people are greater. Whereas the opposite is true where the New Mass reigns (Report on the Mass, Diocese of Campos, Roma, Buenos Aires #69, 8/81)

46. Because along with the New Mass goes also a new catechism, a new morality, new prayers, new Code of Canon law, new calendar, -- in a word, a NEW CHURCH, a complete revolution from the old. "The liturgical reform ... do not be deceived, this is where the revolution begins." (Msgr. Dwyer, Archbishop of Birmingham, spokesman of Episcopal Synod)

47. Because the intrinsic beauty of the Traditional Mass attracts souls by itself; whereas the New Mass, lacking any attractiveness of its own, has to invent novelties and entertainment in order to appeal to the people.

48. Because the New mass embodies numerous errors condemned by Pope St. Pius V at the Council of Trent (Mass totally in vernacular, words of Consecration spoken aloud, etc. See Condemnation of Jansenist Synod of Pistoia), and errors condemned by Pope Pius XII (e.g., altar in form of table. See Mediator Dei).

49. Because the New Mass attempts to transform the Catholic Church into a new, ecumenical church embracing all ideologies and all religions - right and wrong, truth and error - a goal long dreamt of by the enemies of the Catholic Church.

50. Because the New Mass, in removing the salutations and final blessing when the priest celebrates alone, shows a denial of, and disbelief in the dogma of the Communion of Saints.

51. Because the altar and tabernacle are now separated, thus marking a division between Christ in His priest-and-Sacrifice-on-the-altar, from Christ in His Real Presence in the tabernacle, "two things which of their very nature, must remain together." (Pius XII)

52. Because the New Mass no longer constitutes a vertical worship between God and man, but rather a horizontal worship between man and man.

53. Because the New Mass, although appearing to conform to the dispositions of Vatican Council II, in reality opposes its instructions, since the Council itself declared its desire to conserve and promote the Traditional Rite.

54. Because the Traditional Latin Mass of Pope St. Pius V has never been legally abrogated and therefore remains a true rite of the Roman Catholic Church by which the faithful may fulfill their Sunday obligation.

55. Because Pope St. Pius V granted a perpetual indult, valid "for always," to celebrate the Traditional Mass freely, licitly, without scruple of conscience, punishment, sentence or censure (Papal Bull Quo Primum)

56. Because Pope Paul VI, when promulgating the New Mass, himself declared. "The rite ... by itself is NOT a dogmatic definition ..." (11/19/69)

57. Because Pope Paul VI, when asked by Cardinal Heenan of England, if he was abrogating or prohibiting the Tridentine Mass, answered: "It is not our intention to prohibit absolutely the Tridentine Mass."

58. Because "In the Libera nos of the New Mass, the Blessed Virgin, the Apostles and all the Saints are no longer mentioned; her and their intercession thus no longer asked, even in time of peril."

59. Because in none of the three new Eucharistic Prayers (of the New Mass) is there any reference ... to the state of suffering of those who have died, in none the possibility of a particular Memento, thus undermining faith in the redemptive nature of the Sacrifice.

60. Because we recognize the Holy Father's supreme authority in his universal government of Holy Mother Church, but we know that even this authority cannot impose upon us a practice which is so CLEARLY against the Faith: a Mass that is equivocal and favoring heresy and therefore disagreeable to God.

61. Because, as stated in Vatican Council I, the "Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter, that by His revelation they might make new doctrine, but that by His assistance they might inviolably keep and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of Faith delivered through the Apostles." (Dnz 3070)

62. Because heresy, or whatever clearly favors heresy, cannot be a matter for obedience. Obedience is at the service of Faith and not Faith at the service of obedience! In this foregoing case then, "One must obey God before men." (Acts 5:29)

- A. Matt Werner is president of Queen of Apostles Mission Association [QAMA.org]