Vatican II was about pastoral policy. Period. It was not called in order radically to change (i.e. to throw away what was used in the past and to start out completely anew, tabula rasa) the Church’s teaching or her Sacred Liturgy or anything else. It was called to find ways all the better for modern man to participate in and to connect with these saving realities in order that souls may be saved. ... …More
Vatican II was about pastoral policy. Period. It was not called in order radically to change (i.e. to throw away what was used in the past and to start out completely anew, tabula rasa) the Church’s teaching or her Sacred Liturgy or anything else. It was called to find ways all the better for modern man to participate in and to connect with these saving realities in order that souls may be saved. ... On 29 October 1962 the Fathers of the Council began their discussion of the second chapter of the draft Constitution (called the Schema Constitutionis De Sacra Liturgia). This included (the then) article 37 on the reform of the Ordo Missae. It proposed: “The Order of Mass is to be reviewed, either in general or in its individual parts, so that it may be more clearly understood and so that it may render the actual participation of the people easier.”
The article generated considerable discussion. Some Fathers saw these words as a licence for revolution and protested strongly: the interventions of Francis Cardinal Spellman, and of Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, are noteworthy for their criticisms. ... The most radical change in the Mass envisaged at the Council was the widespread use of the vernacular languages in the first part of the Mass, then known as the “Mass of the Catechumens” and now as the “Liturgy of the Word,” celebrated with the direct involvement of the people from the sedilia. Even Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre thought this appropriate.[11] An expanded lectionary and the introduction of prayers of the faithful were also envisaged.
It is important to note, however, that the Council Fathers were practically unanimous that from the Offertory onward the Mass should be at the altar and in Latin. The possibility of celebrating this part of the Mass ‘facing the people’ was not envisaged – let alone mandated. Thus, appropriately modified (in the Mass of the Catechumens) for the pastoral good of the people, the Order of Mass that had developed in the course of the centuries was nevertheless to be retained.
This is Sacrosanctum Concilium as it was born – as it was voted on and authoritatively promulgated 60 years ago. Nothing more. Nothing less. One could repeat such a study for the other liturgical rites, but here we shall have to suffice with the rite of the Mass. ... The decades following the Council have demonstrated (statistically and in many other ways) the liturgical springtime and new and pastorally fruitful era in the Church’s history that the reforms were supposed to usher in have simply not arrived. And after more than five decades of waiting, I do not think that it is premature to say that they are not going to.
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Sacrosanctum Concilium Turns 60 - OnePeterFive
Above: one of the televised sessions of Vatican II. The liturgical reform document, Sacrosanctum Concilium, was promulgated sixty years ago today on December …
