In recent comments and texts, it has been very surprising to read the claims by some that the title "Novus Ordo", as applied to the new Roman Liturgy (in particular, the New Roman Missal), or "Ordinary Form" of the Roman Rite, and all things related to it, is made up by its adversaries or somehow inappropriate.
In fact, the phrase was coined by the post-Conciliar bureaucracy, and was given pride of place by Pope Paul VI, first, in his Consistory Address following the promulgation of the New Roman Missal, in April 1969; he called it "nuovo ordinamento", in his famous General Audience adress immediately preceding the implementation of the New Missal, in November 1969; and the expression also appeared in his very famous Address in the Secret Consistory of May 24, 1976 (we remembered its 30th anniversary at the time, one year before the publication of Summorum Pontificum). Paul VI could not have been clearer: "Novus Ordo promulgatus est, ut in locum veteris substitueretur ... ." ("The new Ordo was promulgated in order to replace the old one ..."). The very Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff had no problem in using the contraposition "vetus ordo"/"novus ordo" in this text released last year on The Priest in the Concluding Rites of the Mass.
How can this be controversial? Is it controversial because it is wrong or only because of those who make use of the expression are the 'wrong' kind of people? And why would it be considered bad? If the Mass of Paul VI is called 'Novus Ordo', is that not a compliment? Are not new things good, and fresh, and upbeat? "[T]he expectation of a new earth must not weaken but rather stimulate our concern for cultivating this one. For here grows the body of a new human family, a body which even now is able to give some kind of foreshadowing of the new age." ("... ubi Corpus illud novae familiae humanae crescit quod aliqualem novi saeculi adumbrationem iam praebere valet." Gaudium et spes, 39)
How can this be controversial? Is it controversial because it is wrong or only because of those who make use of the expression are the 'wrong' kind of people? And why would it be considered bad? If the Mass of Paul VI is called 'Novus Ordo', is that not a compliment? Are not new things good, and fresh, and upbeat? "[T]he expectation of a new earth must not weaken but rather stimulate our concern for cultivating this one. For here grows the body of a new human family, a body which even now is able to give some kind of foreshadowing of the new age." ("... ubi Corpus illud novae familiae humanae crescit quod aliqualem novi saeculi adumbrationem iam praebere valet." Gaudium et spes, 39)
Which once again makes us thank God Almighty and Mary, Help of Christians, for the best thing Paul VI ever did, at least in the field of Sacred Liturgy: naming Father Dr. Joseph Ratzinger, Professor at the University of Regensburg, Archbishop of Munich and Freising and creating him Cardinal in his very last consistory.
