Only four years had passed since the publication of the new Missal when Pope Paul VI surprised the Catholic world with a new Ordo Missæ, dated April 6, 1969. The revision made in 1965 did not touch the traditional liturgical rite. In accordance with the mandate of Article 50 of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, it had been primarily concerned with removing some later additions to the Order of the Mass. The publication of the Ordo Missæ of 1969, however, created a new liturgical rite. In other words, the traditional liturgical rite had not simply been revised as the Council had intended. Rather, it had been completely abolished, and a couple of years later, the traditional liturgical rite was, in fact, forbidden. All this leads to the question: Does such a radical reform follow the tradition of the Church?
... The argument could be made that the pope's authority to introduce a new liturgical rite, that is, to do so without a decision by a council, can be derived from the "full and highest power" (plena et suprema potestas) he has in the Church, as cited by the First Vatican Council, i.e., power over matters quæ ad disciplinam et regimen ecclesiæ per totum orbem diffusæ pertinent ("that pertain to the discipline and rule of the Church spread out over all the world") (Denzinger, 1831). However, the term disciplina in no way applies to the liturgical rite of the Mass, particularly in light of the fact that the popes have repeatedly observed that the rite is founded on apostolic tradition. For this reason alone, the rite cannot fall into the category of "discipline and rule of the Church."
To this we can add that there is not a single document, including the Codex Iuris Canonici, in which there is a specific statement that the pope, in his function as the supreme pastor of the Church, has the authority to abolish the traditional liturgical rite. In fact, nowhere is it mentioned that the pope has the authority to change even a single local liturgical tradition. The fact that there is no mention of such authority strengthens our case considerably. There are clearly defined limits to the plena et suprema potestas (full and highest powers) of the pope. For example, there is no question that, even in matters of dogma, he still has to follow the tradition of the universal Church—that is, as Vincent of Lerins says, what has been believed (quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus).
In fact, there are several authors who state quite explicitly that it is clearly outside the pope's scope of authority to abolish the traditional rite. Thus, the eminent theologian Suarez (who died in 1617), citing even earlier authors such as Cajetan (who died in 1534), took the position that a pope would be schismatic "if he, as is his duty, would not be in full communion with the body of the Church as, for example, if he were to excommunicate the entire Church, or if he were to change all the liturgical rites of the Church that have been upheld by apostolic tradition." [Et hoc secundo modo posset Papa esse schismaticus, si nollet tenere cum toto Ecclesiæ corpore unionem et coniunctionem quam debet, ut si tenat et totem Ecclesiam excommunicare, aut si vellel omnes Ecclesiasticas cæremonias apostolica traditione firmatas evertere.]
As we examine the issue of unlimited papal authority and how it relates to the authority to change the established liturgical rite, if the statement made by Suarez still is not entirely convincing, this argument just may be: the already established fact that, until Pope Paul VI, there has not been a single pope who introduced the type of fundamental changes in liturgical forms which we now witness.
Klaus Gamber
The Reform of the Roman Liturgy
(Die Reform der römischen Liturgie: Vorgeschichte und Problematik)
