As reported recently by the New Liturgical Movement, the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, in a letter dated January 20, 2010 (Prot. 13/2007), has issued the following clarifications:
1. If there is no other possibility, because for instance in all churches of a diocese the liturgies of the Sacred Triduum are already being celebrated in the Ordinary Form, the liturgies of the Sacred Triduum may, in the same church in which they are already celebrated in the Ordinary Form, be additionally celebrated in the Extraordinary Form, if the local ordinary allows.
2. A Mass in the usus antiquior may replace a regularly scheduled Mass in the Ordinary Form. The question contextualizes that in many churches Sunday Masses are more or less scheduled continually, leaving free only very incovenient mid afternoon slots, but this is merely context, the question posed being general. The answer leaves the matter to the prudent judgement of the parish priest, and emphasises the right of a stable group to assist at Mass in the Extraordinary Form.
3. A parish priest may schedule a public Mass in the Extraordinary Form on his own accord (i.e. without the request of a group of faithful) for the benefit of the faithful including those unfamiliar with the usus antiquior. The response of the Commission here is identical to no. 2.
4. The calendar, readings or prefaces of the 1970 Missale Romanum may not be substituted for those of the 1962 Missale Romanum in Masses in the Extraordinary Form.
5. While the liturgical readings (Epistle and Gospel) themselves have to be read by
the priest (or deacon/subdeacon) as foreseen by the rubrics, a translation to the vernacular may afterwards be read also by a layman.
While other commentators have focused on the importance of nos. 2 and 3 in this clarification, there seems to have been very little discussion of the importance of no. 4. Truth to tell, this particular ruling probably has greater importance than the others for it severely limits the importation of elements from the Missal of Paul VI into the Missal of Bl. John XXIII.
To be precise, the fourth clarification has the following effects:
1) It reverses several earlier rulings of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, in particular:
a) The decision of Augustin Cardinal Mayer OSB, the first President of the PCED, to permit the use of the Pauline Lectionary in the vernacular, in place of the readings in the 1962 Missal. This permission can be found in PCED’s Prot. 500/90, better known as the Letter of Cardinal Mayer to the Bishops of the United States. Although this provision was never popular, it was indeed practiced in a few locations, at the behest of the local bishops. (Cardinal Mayer's letter mentions this permission only in passing, and the letter, as a whole, was one of the most important documents for the "re-legitimization" of the Traditional Roman Rite in the period 1984-2007.)
b) The decision of Angelo Cardinal Felici, contained in Prot. 40/97 (March 26, 1997) to permit the use of the Prefaces of the Missal of 1970 for the “appropriate” Masses celebrated according to the 1962 Missal. (I don’t know if anyone ever availed of this permission. However, one popular guide to the Ordo Missae according to the 1962 Missal has a selection of prefaces from the 1970 Missal, so I would guess that some priests and communities made use of this decision.)
It would also be interesting to know if the newest clarification from the PCED constitutes a reversal of the same commission’s Prot. 107/97, dated October 20, 2008, (see this and this) which had granted permission for the Masses of the Holydays of Obligation that are celebrated according to the 1962 Missal to be offered on the Sundays to which these same Holydays had been transferred in the local calendars used for the Missal of Paul VI. Like the two innovations mentioned above, this permission -- which grants External Solemnities to feasts that, under historic “Tridentine” practice (including the 1962 Missal itself), never actually had them (the Epiphany and the Ascension come to mind) -- has been adopted only by a few communities, all the while causing much controversy and stoking fears of the further hybridization of the 1962 Missal.
(Someone has expressed to me the opinion that the newest letter from the PCED, which is signed by a monsignor, could not possibly overturn permissions that had been signed by Cardinals. Perhaps some of our readers could charitably respond to this argument.)
2) It more clearly delineates – for now – the limits of the “mutual enrichment” between the 1962 and 1970 Missals, and seems to indicate that there will not be any further “modernizations” of the Missal of 1962 in the near future.
I would also like to add that, as far as Low Masses are concerned, clarification no. 5 – permitting a layman to read the Epistle and Gospel in the vernacular after these had been read according to the rubrics by a priest (or deacon/subdeacon) – is not new, but merely reiterates what De Musica Sacra (September 3, 1958) had already permitted (see De Musica Sacra, no. 14.c). However the same cannot be said for Sung or Solemn Masses.
The new clarification also stipulates that the layman is to read the translation of the Epistle and Gospel after these had been read by the priest, unlike the practice that had obtained prior to Vatican II in some places where the lay reader read the Epistle and Gospel simultaneously with the priest saying these in a subdued voice.
1. If there is no other possibility, because for instance in all churches of a diocese the liturgies of the Sacred Triduum are already being celebrated in the Ordinary Form, the liturgies of the Sacred Triduum may, in the same church in which they are already celebrated in the Ordinary Form, be additionally celebrated in the Extraordinary Form, if the local ordinary allows.
2. A Mass in the usus antiquior may replace a regularly scheduled Mass in the Ordinary Form. The question contextualizes that in many churches Sunday Masses are more or less scheduled continually, leaving free only very incovenient mid afternoon slots, but this is merely context, the question posed being general. The answer leaves the matter to the prudent judgement of the parish priest, and emphasises the right of a stable group to assist at Mass in the Extraordinary Form.
3. A parish priest may schedule a public Mass in the Extraordinary Form on his own accord (i.e. without the request of a group of faithful) for the benefit of the faithful including those unfamiliar with the usus antiquior. The response of the Commission here is identical to no. 2.
4. The calendar, readings or prefaces of the 1970 Missale Romanum may not be substituted for those of the 1962 Missale Romanum in Masses in the Extraordinary Form.
5. While the liturgical readings (Epistle and Gospel) themselves have to be read by
the priest (or deacon/subdeacon) as foreseen by the rubrics, a translation to the vernacular may afterwards be read also by a layman.
While other commentators have focused on the importance of nos. 2 and 3 in this clarification, there seems to have been very little discussion of the importance of no. 4. Truth to tell, this particular ruling probably has greater importance than the others for it severely limits the importation of elements from the Missal of Paul VI into the Missal of Bl. John XXIII.
To be precise, the fourth clarification has the following effects:
1) It reverses several earlier rulings of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, in particular:
a) The decision of Augustin Cardinal Mayer OSB, the first President of the PCED, to permit the use of the Pauline Lectionary in the vernacular, in place of the readings in the 1962 Missal. This permission can be found in PCED’s Prot. 500/90, better known as the Letter of Cardinal Mayer to the Bishops of the United States. Although this provision was never popular, it was indeed practiced in a few locations, at the behest of the local bishops. (Cardinal Mayer's letter mentions this permission only in passing, and the letter, as a whole, was one of the most important documents for the "re-legitimization" of the Traditional Roman Rite in the period 1984-2007.)
b) The decision of Angelo Cardinal Felici, contained in Prot. 40/97 (March 26, 1997) to permit the use of the Prefaces of the Missal of 1970 for the “appropriate” Masses celebrated according to the 1962 Missal. (I don’t know if anyone ever availed of this permission. However, one popular guide to the Ordo Missae according to the 1962 Missal has a selection of prefaces from the 1970 Missal, so I would guess that some priests and communities made use of this decision.)
It would also be interesting to know if the newest clarification from the PCED constitutes a reversal of the same commission’s Prot. 107/97, dated October 20, 2008, (see this and this) which had granted permission for the Masses of the Holydays of Obligation that are celebrated according to the 1962 Missal to be offered on the Sundays to which these same Holydays had been transferred in the local calendars used for the Missal of Paul VI. Like the two innovations mentioned above, this permission -- which grants External Solemnities to feasts that, under historic “Tridentine” practice (including the 1962 Missal itself), never actually had them (the Epiphany and the Ascension come to mind) -- has been adopted only by a few communities, all the while causing much controversy and stoking fears of the further hybridization of the 1962 Missal.
(Someone has expressed to me the opinion that the newest letter from the PCED, which is signed by a monsignor, could not possibly overturn permissions that had been signed by Cardinals. Perhaps some of our readers could charitably respond to this argument.)
2) It more clearly delineates – for now – the limits of the “mutual enrichment” between the 1962 and 1970 Missals, and seems to indicate that there will not be any further “modernizations” of the Missal of 1962 in the near future.
I would also like to add that, as far as Low Masses are concerned, clarification no. 5 – permitting a layman to read the Epistle and Gospel in the vernacular after these had been read according to the rubrics by a priest (or deacon/subdeacon) – is not new, but merely reiterates what De Musica Sacra (September 3, 1958) had already permitted (see De Musica Sacra, no. 14.c). However the same cannot be said for Sung or Solemn Masses.
The new clarification also stipulates that the layman is to read the translation of the Epistle and Gospel after these had been read by the priest, unlike the practice that had obtained prior to Vatican II in some places where the lay reader read the Epistle and Gospel simultaneously with the priest saying these in a subdued voice.
