Linda is in the state of California and you're up next with Tim. Hi Linda. Hi,
thank you. My question is, could you shed some light on, or how would you answer
Catholics who say the Novus Ordo Mass is not licit? They didn't say invalid,
they just said there were things wrong with it. Right, yes. I--what I would do,
Linda, and believe me I do this all the time and I have for many years, is I
ask them to specify: what is it about the mass that you would say is illicit?
Because you really have to get from them what it is that they're
talking about. I could throw out some examples of things that I know they
would say; for example, in the words of institution, before the Mass of Paul VI,
or the the New Roman Missal, was promulgated in 1969, you used to have,
within the words of institution, the priest would say "The mystery of faith,"
"Mysterium fidei." And during the reforms of Vatican II, they rightly took that out,
and this was one of the many good reforms that happened as a result of
Vatican II and in the post-conciliar documents, because that's not found in
any of the institution narratives that we find in the Gospels or in the book of
Acts; it's not found in any of the Eastern Rites, none of them have that "Mysterium
fidei," so it was removed from there and made an acclamation after the words of
institution. So now we have the congregation announcing "The mystery of
faith, Christ has died, Christ is risen," you know, that sort of thing. Now, they would argue
that the Pope did not have the authority to do that because, you
know, Pope St. Pius V, in "Quo Primum," when he promulgated what we call now
the Tridentine Mass, or the mass of Saint
Pius V, said in that document that no one has the authority to change...you know,
I don't have the document in front of me, but in not so many words, he says words
to the effect of: no one has the authority to change this. Now,
unfortunately that's a fundamental blunder on the part of these folks who
don't understand that Quo Primum was principally a juridical document, so the
Popes always use the language that "no one has the authority to change this,"
because he's exercising his his authority as Pope. But it pre--
it's understood that he doesn't have the power to bind a Pope--a future Pope--to
that which is by nature malleable; it's by nature changeable, because it is
juridical in nature. So there's a fundamental misunderstanding of Quo
Primum that then leads to folks saying, "Well then the Pope has no authority
to change this all these centuries later;" and the problem with that
is, Linda, there were changes made in the Tridentine Mass many times over the
centuries, last by Pope Pius XII, you know, in the 1940s, 1950s. So again, what I
would say, Linda, is you take them one by one. Find out: "Okay, what is it that you
say is illicit, let's talk about it and we can do it one by one." Now there's a
great book I would recommend, by James Likoudis and Kenneth Whitehead, that
goes through these wonderfully; again, by James Likoudis, that's "L-I-K-O-U-D-I-S," and
Kenneth Whitehead. The book is called "The Pope, The Council, and The Mass." In fact, they
just had, a few years ago, a new edition of that book come out. I have both the
old and the new, it's outstanding. But it'll go through just about every point
anybody who calls into question of the liceity of the Novus Ordo is going to
make. But does does that help at all, Linda? Yeah, yeah it does. One thing that
was mentioned was, you know, the direction, the east, and should we be facing God
or facing the people, and I think that my thought on that was that
Jesus gave us two Commandments: love the Lord thy God, and the other one was your
neighbor as yourself, and there's room enough for all of us in
here, some people go for the one direction, some people go the other direction. Well there's--that's
a good way to put it, Linda; what's happening here is we're majoring on the
minors. Now I happen to agree--and by the way, so did Pope Benedict XVI,
and so does Cardinal Lorenzo and others, that we should in fact face ad orientem,
as we say, or to or to the East; it's a very ancient tradition, a rich tradition.
In fact, I'd recommend Pope Benedict-- then Cardinal Ratzinger's--book "The Spirit of
the Liturgy," where he makes the argument for that. And I think there is a good
argument for the good and the truth of having the priests facing to the
East, but that is not part of the ESSENCE of the liturgy that is unchangeable. So
even though we can say, "Well, you know, there is something lost in
losing this," and there's there's much to be said in its favor,
like you said Linda, that's not a hill to die on and it's certainly not something
to separate over and it's absolutely not a reason to say that the Mass of Paul
VI is then it illicit. Okay, Linda? Thank you very much! All, right
thank you. You're very welcome.