"Novus Ordo Missae" (New Order of the Mass) and Mass of Pope Paul VI or Pauline Mass are terms used to refer to the liturgy of the Mass as revised by the Roman Catholic Church by decree of the Second Vatican Council.

The document[1] by which Pope Paul VI ordered publication of a new edition of the Roman Missal, revised in line with the directives of the Second Vatican Council, was dated Holy Thursday, 3 April 1969. The Missal itself was published in 1970.

The Ordo Missae [2] (literally, “Order of the Mass”, though in the past it was usually called in English “Ordinary of the Mass”), is a section of the Roman Missal giving the common prayers and general rubrics for the celebration of Mass. In the 1970 Missal, another section, the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani (“General Instruction of the Roman Missal”, hereinafter referred to as GIRM), available on the Internet in English translations of its 1975 version[3] and its 2002 edition,[4] replaces the sections Rubricae Generales Missalis, Additiones et Variationes in Rubricis Missalis, Ritus Servandus in Celebratione Missae, and De Defectibus in Celebratione Missarum Occurrentibus of the pre-Vatican-II Missal. The Roman Missal has always had many other sections; and use of the term “Novus Ordo Missae” in the sense indicated above, nominally reducing the 1970 Missal to an Ordo Missae, usually betrays a negative attitude in its regard.

The Roman Missal published by Pope Pius V in 1570, seven years after the final session of the Council of Trent (see Tridentine Mass), was itself a significant revision of the existing texts, involving research done to restore the Missal “to the original form and rite of the holy Fathers” [5]. Later Popes too made alterations or even wholescale revisions.[6] [7] [8] But, with the sole exception of Pope Pius XII’s substantive revision of the section of the Missal governing the Easter Vigil and Holy Week liturgy, these were less profound than that by which Pope Paul VI implemented the decisions of the Second Vatican Council.

On the other hand, the 1970 revision was itself minor in comparison with what occurred at Rome at some time between the fourth and the sixth and seventh centuries, when “the Eucharistic prayer was fundamentally changed and recast” (article on the Mass[9] in the Catholic Encyclopedia).

In English-speaking countries, many confuse this 1970 Roman Missal with liturgical abuses springing largely from a do-your-own-thing attitude prevalent in the following decades, abuses that have been repeatedly reprobated by the Holy See, which, in its 25 March 2004 document Redemptionis Sacramentum,[10] called on all Catholics to help put an end to them.

In the same countries, the reality of the 1970 Roman Missal is also obscured by a too hastily prepared English translation of the texts. Work is being done to produce a more faithful translation. This, unfortunately, cannot be expected to be completed and in use before late 2006 at the very earliest.

The Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum,[11] promulgating the 1970 Roman Missal, singled out for special mention the following changes:

1. Three new canons or eucharistic prayers were added to the single one that the Roman rite, in contrast to other rites, previously used. The only obligatory alteration to the traditional Roman Canon was that, at the consecration, the words “Mysterium fidei” were removed from the context of the words of Christ. They are now said by the priest as an introduction to an acclamation by the faithful.

2. The rites indicated in the Ordo Missae were “simplified, with due care to preserve their substance”; “elements which with the passage of time came to be duplicated or were added with but little advantage” were eliminated; and “other elements which suffered injury through accidents of history” were restored “to the earlier norm of the holy Fathers” (a phrase echoing Pope Pius V’s Bull Quo primum[12]). The phrases here enclosed in quotation marks come from the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy.[13] [14]

3. A much more representative portion of the holy Scriptures is read to the people. The present three readings (four, if you count the Psalm) over three years of Sundays more than quadruple the previous two readings in a single-year cycle. A two-year cycle of readings from Scripture has also been assigned to weekdays, which previously, except for Lent and a few other days, had only a repetition of the previous Sunday’s readings.

In addition to these three changes, the revision corrected and considerably modified other sections of the Roman Missal, such as the Proper of Seasons, the Proper of Saints, the Common of Saints, Ritual Masses and Votive Masses. New prayers were added to correspond better to new needs, and the text of older prayers was restored on the basis of the ancient sources.

Recognition of the benefits of using the mother tongue in the Church’s rites, already mentioned by Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) in his encyclical Mediator Dei, 60[15] was applied by the Second Vatican Council to the liturgy of the Mass also.[16] [17] Permission was therefore granted for national conferences of bishops to authorize the use of vernacular languages in place of Latin.

The 1970 Roman Missal envisages the giving of Communion to the faithful under the appearance of wine as well as under the appearance of bread. The very few circumstances (GIRM, 242) in which this was at first permitted were gradually extended. As a result, in many churches it is availed of at every Mass. This is a return to a practice that had largely fallen into disuse in Western Europe even before the Council of Trent, and the revised Roman Missal therefore insisted that “Priests should use the occasion to teach the faithful the Catholic doctrine on the form of Communion, as affirmed by the Council of Trent. They should first be reminded that, according to Catholic faith, they receive the whole Christ and the genuine sacrament when they participate in the sacrament even under one kind and that they are not thus deprived of any grace necessary for salvation” (GIRM, 241)

Before the revision, priest and people generally faced in the same direction for the canon of the Mass. Most altars, topped with a tabernacle and often built against a wall or backed by a reredos, made no other orientation possible. However, this was not universal: at the high altars in the major basilicas in Rome the Popes traditionally celebrated Mass facing the people, and even in small, but ancient, churches, such as that of the Four Crowned Saints in Via dei Santi Quattro, the altar was arranged so that the priest necessarily faced the people throughout the Mass. Indeed, the text of the pre-Vatican-II Missal (Ritus servandus in celebratione Missae, V, 3) expressly envisaged this orientation. Without imposing it, the 1970 Roman Missal called for it to be made possible: "The main altar should be freestanding so that the ministers can easily walk around it and Mass can be celebrated facing the people" (GIRM 1975,[18] 262). The 2002 edition of GIRM added a phrase declaring a freestanding main altar “desirable wherever possible" (GIRM 2002,[19] 299). The facing-the-people orientation, though by no means obligatory,[20] has in practice become almost universal.

At only four points did the 1975 GIRM[21] (86, 107, 115, 122) prescribe that the priest should face the people, namely, for the opening greeting, for the invitation to pray (“Orate fratres”) before beginning the eucharistic prayer or canon of the Mass, when displaying the consecrated host before receiving and giving communion (“Domine, non sum dignus”), and when inviting to pray (“Oremus”) at the postcommunion prayer). The 2002 edition[22] (124, 146, 154, 157, 165) adds the point at which the priest gives the greeting of peace (“Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum”). The pre-Vatican-II Ordo Missae gave the same indications as the 1975 GIRM, except that it ignored the Communion of the people, mention of which was found in the Missal only in its Ritus servandus in celebratione Missae, X, 6, with an outline of the rite, not the full text.

GIRM directs the priest to face the altar at several points, exactly as in the pre-Vatican-II Ordo Missae. Usually, because of his orientation, this means he also faces the people.

The change in orientation meant that, in general, the tabernacle cannot be on the altar at which Mass is celebrated. For its consequent placing, the 1970 Missal gives the direction: “In accordance with the structure of each church and legitimate local customs, the Most Blessed Sacrament should be reserved in a tabernacle in a part of the church that is truly noble, prominent, readily visible, beautifully decorated, and suitable for prayer” (GIRM, 314).

Some criticize the 1970 revision on aesthetic grounds (less beautiful, less holy-feeling, more boring). Often these criticisms are directed in reality against celebrations that depart from the revised Missal, replacing it with personal inventions.

The revision is also opposed on the ground that it was meant to mask Catholic beliefs incompatible with Protestant views, such as the sacrificial character of the Mass, transubstantiation, the necessity of a specific ministerial priesthood.

An effort is made to preserve faithfully here criticisms of this kind that have been inserted by previous contributors, while adding some comments.

Opponents of the Second Vatican Council revision of the Roman Missal, while admitting that Popes of the period before that Council, such as Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), recognized that "the use of the mother tongue in connection with several of the rites may be of much advantage to the people" (Mediator Dei, 60[23]) attribute evil intentions to the Pope who promulgated the Second Vatican Council revision.

A speech by the then 85-year-old Cardinal Alfons Stickler, as reported in the Summer 1995 issue of the magazine The Latin Mass, attributed to French philosopher Jean Guitton the statement that "Pope Paul revealed to him that it was his [the Pope’s] intention to assimilate as much as possible of the new Catholic liturgy to Protestant worship".[24] [25] However, the speech gave no source for this claim and questioned whether the alleged remark should be interpreted in its superficially apparent sense, "since all the official statements of Paul VI—especially his excellent eucharistic encyclical Mysterium Fidei of 1965,[26] issued before the end of the Council, as well as the Credo of the People of God,[27] demonstrate his absolute orthodoxy".

“Critics quote the words of Anibal Buganini, one of the principle authors of the New Mass, which say that the goal was to remove anything that might be a ‘stumbling block to the separated brethren’”. Comment on this alleged statement by “Anibal Buganini” (evidently Father Annibale Bugnini) must await knowledge of the exact words used (presumably in Italian) and (probably even more important) the context in which they were used. By taking phrases out of their context, critics have been known even to make it appear that, in a document upholding the revised liturgy, the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments was instead criticizing it.

GIRM (1975), 7 states: "At Mass or the Lord's Supper, the people of God are called together, with a priest presiding and acting in the person of Christ, to celebrate the memorial of the Lord or eucharistic sacrifice. For this reason Christ's promise applies supremely to such a local gathering together of the Church: 'Where two or three come together in my name, there am I in their midst' (Mt 18:20). For at the celebration of Mass, which perpetuates the sacrifice of the cross, Christ is really present to the assembly gathered in His name; He is present in the person of the minister, in His own word, and indeed substantially and permanently under the eucharistic elements."[28] This is the English translation chosen by the person who put forward the following objections. It differs in no substantial way from the translation printed in English-language editions of the Roman Missal.

He and others like him take issue with almost every word in that sentence, which they claim is symptomatic of the entire revision:

• "the people of God are called together, with a priest presiding and acting in the person of Christ". They contend that this description of the Mass as involving the calling together of the people of God with a priest presiding seems to suggest that every Mass must have people watching it, with Mass being essentially for the local people; but, they add, Catholic belief is that every Mass, even if said in private, benefits all people, and is good. Before the Second Vatican Council, they say, certain Priests and Bishops were confused on this point, but others were willfully against this point because they believed that the main good of the Mass was due to local people participating. Many Popes, they allege, wrote unspecified encyclicals countering this notion, and also made certain equally unspecified laws that forced Priests to have Masses in private, much in the same way that the congregation was only allowed to receive the Host, to counter the confusion around that issue. (Comment: Priests were in reality prohibited from saying Mass alone, since canon 813 §1 of the pre-Vatican-II Code of Canon Law forbade them to celebrate Mass without an assistant to serve and give the responses.) They assert that the Council Fathers wanted the Mass to be defined in this way in order to engender greater unity with Protestants who do not believe that a private service by a priest does any good.

• "priest presiding". Although depiction of the priest as presiding at Mass goes back to Saint Martyr’s description, at the beginning of the second century, of eucharistic celebration,[29] [30] opponents see the term as ambiguous and attribute its use to alleged discarding of belief that the priest alone is empowered to bring about the change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ and acceptance of Protestant denial of a specific ministerial priesthood in the Church.

• "to celebrate the memorial of the Lord or eucharistic sacrifice". The same critics claim that this wording is meant to reduce the eucharistic sacrifice to just a memorial, although it is Catholic belief that the Mass is a real sacrifice, the very same sacrifice that Jesus offered when dying on the cross, while Protestant groups that have kept a similar service do it merely as a memorial. (Comment: In reality, GIRM in this very section explicitly states that the Mass "perpetuates the sacrifice of the cross", as it does elsewhere too (e.g. §2, again quoting the Council of Trent), thus reflecting Catholic teaching that the Mass is not a different sacrifice from that of Jesus on the cross, but the same sacrifice made sacramentally present for us today.)

The following is a quotation of a criticism of this type:

“In keeping with the emphasis on the supper element, the priest faces the people, who together form a communal gathering amongst themselves; the tabernacle is set aside, no longer in nobilissimo loco, which is apparently not in keeping with liturgical tradition, a key portion of critics' observations. For example, they observe that in the liturgical and architectural changes that were coterminous with and supported by the new theology of the Novus Ordo Missae, the tabernacle was placed in locations lacking liturgical significance, and were also redesigned often by modern artists, a trend documented by Michael S. Rose in his work, Ugly as Sin. In some churches it became difficult to locate the tabernacle that had always been central. The tabernacle was always to be given the most prominent location in the Church, according to Paul VI, who, in the Latin translation of Mysterium Fidei, called that place "the 'most prominent place' ('in nobilissimo loco')."[31] The removal of the tabernacle is intimately connected with the New Rite of Mass which is designed to emphasize the concept of a communal Jewish Seder Supper, an association emphasized to catechumens, i.e. those in process of joining the Church, and to de-emphasize the sacrificial nature of the Mass.”

Even a beginner knows that Latin has nothing corresponding to the English word “the”. Accordingly, instead of meaning “in the most prominent, or noble, place”, “in nobilissimo loco” can mean “in a very noble place”. The latter is what appears in the Italian,[32] as well as the English[33]and other versions[34] [35] of the encyclical, a clear indication of what Pope Paul VI actually wrote. GIRM, 314 uses an equivalent word, rendered in English as “truly noble”[36]

In any case, this is a complaint not against the revision of the liturgy as mandated (cf. GIRM, 314, quoted above), but against abuses that Cardinal Francis Arinze, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, has denounced both in official documents such as Redemptionis Sacramentumand in talks such as one he delivered in the United States in 2003.[37]

Opponents of the revision claim that by selective omissions and emphases the 1970 Missal diminishes awareness of the Mass’s sacrificial character and of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, a dogmatic Catholic belief previously recognized, they say, through the prayer "Receive, Most Holy Trinity, This Oblation", which is now omitted.[38] This prayer, which the priest said before he began the eucharistic prayer or canon of the Mass, was problematic precisely in regard to Catholic belief in the Real Presence of Christ from the moment of the consecration, not before. The prayer spoke of offering (in the present tense) the oblation, when only unconsecrated bread and wine were present, a difficulty intensified by two preceding prayers formulated as offering at that very stage "this immaculate" host or victim and the "chalice of salvation". The phrases were meant to be anticipatory of the later Real Presence, but presented a greater ambiguity than anything found in the revised text of the Mass. This, as before the revision, has frequent mentions of the sacrificial character of the Mass.

The revised liturgy calls for fewer acts of reverence for the Eucharist in the form of signs of the Cross and genuflexions by both priest and faithful. This has been attributed to changes in cultural conventions, as seen also in civil ceremonies, but the critics, for whom these actions are keys to participation in Mass, claim that the Church has effectively exaggerated the trend.

They also say that the priest, rather than the Eucharist, is now the centre of attention, encouraging a focus on the human rather than the divine, and presenting the priest as “performing”, while previously, because of his orientation, he was seen clearly to lead the people and worship with them.

For English-speaking countries, the acclamation "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again" was added to the three post-consecration acclamations given in the 1970 Ordo Missae. Like them, it expresses the faith in the final coming of Christ that has always been linked with the eucharistic celebration (cf. 1 Cor 11:26). But opponents of the revision interpret the phrase "Christ will come again" as casting doubt on the Real Presence of Christ in the consecrated elements.

Critics quote Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, who, in a comment on a draft version of the Ordo Missae, considered that "instead of emphasizing remission for sins for the living and the dead, the new rite [in the prayers included and excluded] stresses the nourishment and sanctification of those present."[39] One critic then adds that this relates to “the communal aspect in which the priest faces the people: there shall be a nourishing meal, rather than a prayer session led by the priest for the remission of sins.” Apart from the strange description of the Mass as “a prayer session led by the priest for the remission of sins”, it is worth remarking that, after the definitive Ordo Missae appeared as part of the revised Roman Missal, Cardinal Ottaviani wrote that Pope Paul VI’s doctrinal exposition of the revised liturgy meant that “no one can any longer be genuinely scandalized”.[40]

The following earlier contribution to this article is example of another kind of criticism raised against the 1970 Roman Missal.

“Participation by the congragation during the Mass, while not really touched upon in the text of the Novus Ordo, was one of the main concerns of many liturgical reformers leading up to the Vatican Councill II and indeed was one of the many visible results from the Novus Ordo changes. Advocates for the changes say that the congragation in general was too inactive before, and did not follow properly along with the Mass. For example, many believe that the congragation should answer the prayers with the Priest, sing along, and engage in certain actions such as the bringing up the bread and wine to the priest, a practice which was discontinued early on in the roman rite. Various people advocated these things in order to improve the experience of the congragation attending mass, although again critics believe that some sudgested these things in order to conform with the prostant idea of the universal priesthood. Previous calls for more congragational participation did not prompt much action from the Popes before Vatican II, because they wanted to avoid the impression that congragational participation was essential to the mass for it to be complete (instead they taught that the essential sacrifice and efficacy of the Mass was due to the work performed (ex operantis is the technical term) by the priest/bishop alone.”

Is it perhaps possible that the technical term the writer had in mind was ex opere operantis? But this phrase describes non-Catholic views of how the sacraments confer grace, meaning either ex opere operantis ministri (in view of the minister’s merits), the Donatist view, or ex opere operantis subiecti (in view of the recipient’s faith), according to Luther. Catholic teaching, defined by the Council of Trent (Enchiridion Symbolorum, 851), is that God bestows his grace on those disposed to receive it not for these reasons but by means of the sacraments themselves: ex opere operato (see Catechism of the Catholic Church,[41] 1128).

In summary, people who maintain that Mass celebrated in accordance with the1970 Roman Missal is entirely invalid, or at least deficient, claim that “its theology, prayers, and ritual actions do not adequately support the faith”, on grounds that they consider to be facts, but that others view as unverified allegations. Iudicet lector (Latin for: "Let the reader make his judgment").

• The file GIRMALL.HTM, available (also as GIRMALL.ZIP) on http://www.ewtn.com/library/indexes/CURIA.htm, contains – along with other material mostly pertaining to the United States alone – what can be called the official English translation of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 1975 edition, and of the Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum, by which the 1970 Roman Missal was promulgated, as well as an English translation of numerous Roman responses (until 1997) to queries about the revised liturgy.
• Ordo Missae of the 1970 Roman Missal, Latin and English texts, rubrics in English only
• General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 1975 edition
• General Instruction of the Roman Missal,1975 edition. (This version is frequently more literal that the official English translation.)
• General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 2002 edition
• Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Liturgy
• http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/pope0262r.htm Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum, promulgating the 1970 Roman Missal (Pope Paul VI)]
• Quo primum, promulgating the 1570 Roman Missal (Pope Pius V)
• Cum santissimum, promulgating the 1604 Roman Missal (Pope Clement VIII)
• Si quid est, promulgating the 1634 Roman Missal (Pope Urban VIII)
• Rubrical comparisons over several centuries (.doc format) (see OrdoRecitandi.com)
• Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum
• A Short Critical Study
• Commentary on Quo primum
• The Case for the Latin Mass by Dietrich von Hildebrand
• The Mass: Introduction
• The New Mass: A Flavor of Protestantism
• Novus ordo Missae: The record after thirty years (Dr. James Lothian, HPR)
• ‘Traditionalist’ Errors Syllabus Part II – On the Mass
• On the Validity of the Mass of Paul VI
• A Micro Look at the Pauline Mass
• In Defense of the Pauline Mass