The Authority of the Traditional Rite
Two considerations spotlight the authority of the so-called Mass of St. Pius V: its origin and the unique privilege it possesses.
The Traditional Rite Is of Apostolic Origin
Pope Paul VI acknowledged the antiquity of the traditional Mass
Pope Paul VI himself says in his introduction to the new rite that the Mass we celebrate goes back to St. Gregory the Great.1 But it can be said that it goes back further than St. Gregory the Great; it goes all the way to the Apostles. The decrees of the Council of Trent say very clearly that the prayers of the Mass, in particular the Canon, probably go back to the Apostles.2
The words of the Canon of the Mass are certainly the most venerable of our traditions. According to Dom Pace,3 it is very likely that during the forty days before His Ascension, Our Lord taught the Apostles at least the words of the Consecration. And it is these precious words that were assiduously preserved in the Latin Church. The most Blessed Virgin received Communion from the hands of St. John after the sacrifice of the Mass was offered. She would never have tolerated that words be spoken that were not identical to those Our Lord had spoken. For years, she attended the sacrifice of the Mass; she received Holy Communion. It is necessary to think about all this. And the Apostles were indefectible, they were inspired. All that is Tradition.4
St. Pius V restored the rite “to the pristine norm of the Holy Fathers”
In the Bull of St. Pius V, which he published at the restoration of the veritable rite of Mass, the Pope says of the commission of Cardinals he had assembled to restore the Mass: “They restored the Missal itself and the ritual to the pristine (original) norm of the Holy Fathers.” What does St. Pius V mean by this restoration according to the norm of the Holy Fathers? He is speaking of the Fathers of the first centuries who were our fathers in the Faith. Thus St. Pius V has no intention of establishing a new Mass, but of restoring the Mass according to the principles and the form it had in the first centuries. He desires to restore the Mass that originated with our holy Fathers, sanctorum Patrum, our Fathers in faith, our Fathers in Tradition. He wants to restore the holy mysteries that Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself instituted and that our holy Fathers transcribed integrally and with doctrinal precision, in the different prayers that they received either from Our Lord, or from the Apostles, or from the first Fathers.5
It is impossible to read without emotion what the Council of Trent has to say about [the traditional rite of Mass]: “As it is meet that holy things should be given holy treatment and as this sacrifice is the most holy of all, the Catholic Church, so that it may be offered and received with due dignity and reverence, instituted centuries ago, the holy Canon, so free from all error that it holds nothing save what breathes holiness and outward devotion and whatsoever lifts to God the minds of those who offer it. It is, indeed, made up of Our Lord’s own words, the traditions of the Apostles, and the pious teachings of Sovereign Pontiffs.”6,7
It is quite understandable that the prayers that were surely composed by the Apostles were carefully preserved by the Christians, by the priests who handed them down faithfully one after the other in order to preserve them. That is why all the texts that speak about the Latin Mass always refer to it as the Mass of Apostolic Tradition.8
There are publishing houses in Austria that have made wonderful reproductions of the ancient Sacramentaries. And in these Sacramentaries quite often one finds, sometimes from the Offertory, but in any case from the Canon, the prayers of the Roman rite. These books are wonders of illumination. They have been marvelously photographed with modern methods. And you can see that it is exactly the same Canon as the one we use! All the Signs of the Cross, all the genuflections are identical to what we do. And some of these Sacramentaries date back to the eighth century. And there is not any change. That is what the saints, the popes, all those who followed the Roman rite said for centuries.9
St. Pius V did not elaborate a new Mass
The so-called Mass of St. Pius V thus is not a new Mass. St. Pius V did not say: “For the sake of conforming ourselves to the spirit of our time, to the spirit of modern man, we are making a Mass that will be called the Mass of Pius V.”10 St. Gregory the Great himself did not invent the Mass we celebrate. He probably acted like the Council of Trent and St. Pius V. He eliminated things that had been added and kept the things that he deemed should be maintained and definitively fixed for the holy sacrifice of the Mass.11
We sometimes hear certain discussions between our faithful, who, resolved to hold fast to Tradition, speak of the Mass of John XXIII, the Mass of St. Pius X, the Mass of St. Pius V. In reality, there is no Mass of John XXIII, there is no Mass of St. Pius X, there is no Mass of St. Pius V.12 “The Mass of St. Pius V” is not a good term to use. One should rather say “the Mass of all time,” the Catholic Mass, for this Mass goes back to St. Gregory the Great and even to the time of the Apostles.13 Our Mass today is essentially the same as the so-called Mass of John XXIII, of St. Pius X, and of St. Pius V. If there was a reform, this reform aimed precisely at maintaining the forms of the Mass according to our holy Fathers, even the so-called reform of John XXIII, which was not a veritable reform, but which was also desired in order to recover the original form of our holy Mass.14
Endnotes
1 “…[I]nnumerable holy men have abundantly nourished their piety towards God by its readings from Sacred Scripture or by its prayers, whose general arrangement goes back, in essence, to St. Gregory the Great” (Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum, April 3, 1969), §1.
2 Spiritual conference, Zaitzkofen, February 7, 1980. Cf. Council of Trent, Session 22, Ch. 4 (DS 1745 [Dz. 942]).
3 An Italian priest of Turin, author of Pro Missa Traditionali.
4 Retreat, Ecône, September 22, 1978.
5 Spiritual conference, Ecône, September 27, 1986. The prayers of the Roman Canon, for example, are found in the treatise De Sacramentis of St. Ambrose (end of the fourth century).
6 Council of Trent, Session 22, Ch. 4 (DS 1745; Dz. 942); Ch. 5 (DS 1746): “Holy mother Church …has likewise made use of ceremonies such as mystical blessings, lights, incense, vestments, and many other things of this kind in accordance with apostolic teaching and tradition….”
7 Conference, Florence, February 15, 1975, A Bishop Speaks, p. 192.
8 Spiritual conference, Ecône, September 14, 1975.
9 Retreat, Avrillé, October 18, 1989.
10 Spiritual conference, Ecône, September 14, 1975.
11 Ibid., Zaitzkofen, February 7, 1980.
12 Ibid., Ecône, September 27, 1986.
13 Ibid., September 14, 1975.
14 Ibid., September 27, 1986.
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