“And now I will shew you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be wasted” (Isaias 5:5).
Rorate Caeli website has a tribute today in honor of Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani who died thirty-two years ago on August 3, 1979. Principal motivator, along with Antonio Cardinal Bacci, of the famous Ottaviani Intervention, a treatise exposing the doctrinal problems of the soon-to-be-promulgated (1969) Novus Ordo Missae and personally addressed to Pope Paul VI, Ottaviani led the battle with Archbishop Lefebvre, to prevent the promulgation of a New Order of the Mass for the Latin-Rite Church. [Note: For the friends of Saint Benedict Center who may object to my posting anything favorable to Cardinal Ottaviani on account of the fact that he held a pro-secretary post in the Holy Office at the time of Father Feeney’s unjust excommunication, I am not dismissing him for whatever role he played in that travesty. My only purpose in this column is to give proper appreciation to one of only two cardinals who were willing to sign a protest letter to the pope against the dangers to Faith in the liturgical changes and innovations of the Novus Ordo.] The summary objection to the New Ordo of the Mass is immediately put forward as point one in the Intervention:
- The accompanying critical study of the Novus Ordo Missae, the work of a group of theologians, liturgists and pastors of souls, shows quite clearly in spite of its brevity that if we consider the innovations implied or taken for granted which may of course be evaluated in different ways, the Novus Ordo represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent. The “canons” of the rite definitively fixed at that time provided an insurmountable barrier to any heresy directed against the integrity of the Mystery.
The critical study examines the New Mass under eight aspects, beginning with the objection that it had been already rejected, when presented in October 1967 to an Episcopal Synod that had been called together in Rome to examine what the Liturgical Commission had produced under the title “Normative Mass.”
The eight sections include:
- A History of the Change
- A Definition of the Mass
- A Presentation of the Ends
- The Essence
- The Elements of the Sacrifice
- The Destruction of Unity
- The Alienation of the Orthodox
- The Abandonment of Defenses
Many of us more ancient ones had read the Ottaviani Intervention back in the early 1970s. It is not a very lengthy study, but it is packed with theological wisdom, knowledge, and understanding of the nature and history of the Latin liturgy presented mostly by way of contrast with what the Novus Ordo lacks by omission, ambiguity, misplaced Eucharistic terminology (mostly borrowed from the ancient Church’s usage of the discipline of the secret), depletion of corporal rubrical gestures (devaluating the incarnational aspect of the liturgy) and ceremonials, and an overall void of liturgical reverence that ought to complement the divine presence and atmosphere of so holy and sublime a mystery. If you have never read the Ottaviani Intervention you can read it here.
Reading the short entry by Rorate Caeli I was grateful to see that they included a prayer that Roman curial priests used to say before Latin Mass called Formula Intentionis (Formula of Intention). I had never heard of this prayer before. All I could think of when I read it was how much beauty and glory has been lost in the Church in so short a time. This is a very triumphalistic prayer of petition. Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua! Cardinal Ottaviani, according to one priest who served his Mass twice, used to lift his voice while saying this prayer in the sacristy when he came to this part: Et pro felici statu Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae” (“and for the good state of the Holy Roman Church”).
I will paste the prayer in Latin then give the English translation.
Ego volo celebráre Missam, et confícere Corpus et Sánguinem Dómini nostri Iesu Christi, iuxta ritum sanctæ Románæ Ecclésiæ, ad laudem omnipoténtis Dei totiúsque Cúriæ triumphántis, ad utilitátem meam totiúsque Cúriæ militántis, pro ómnibus qui se commendavérunt oratiónibus meis in génere et in spécie, et pro felíci statu sanctæ Románæ Ecclésiæ. Amen.
Gáudium cum pace, emendatiónem vitæ, spátium veræ pæniténtiæ, grátiam et consolatiónem Sancti Spíritus, perseverántiam in bonis opéribus tríbuat nobis omnípotens et miséricors Dóminus. Amen.
I will to celebrate Mass, and confect the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord, according to the rite of the holy Roman Church, to the praise of Almighty God and the triumph of all the Curia, to my good and for all the militants of the Curia, for all those who have commended themselves to my prayers in general and in specific, and for he good state of the Holy Roman Church.
Grant us Almighty and everlasting God joy with peace, reformation of life, time for true penitence, the grace and consolation of the Holy Ghost, perseverance in good works. Amen.
Yes, that was a prayer for those at Roman headquarters to be holy and militant in their priesthood according to the Order of Melchisedeck. But, as with the militant prayer for Saint Michael to “defend us in battle,” this kind of spiritual combativeness has become ill-suited to a Church that has, for now, on its human level, lost its orientation. The trumpet is not giving a clear sound. Until it does, few, even among the good, are able to rise for the battle. (1 Cor. 14:8)
