The Genesis of the Novus Ordo and “Theological and Spiritual Flaws” of the TLM, by Janet E. Smith

Part Three of a response to Cavadini, Healy, and Weinandy’s critique of the traditional Latin Mass.

By Janet E. Smith, Crisis Magazine, Feb. 20, 2023

The second essay in this series demonstrated that Cavadini, Healy, and Weinandy (CHW) misrepresented several key documents in respect to the liturgy as well as the views of Cardinal Ratzinger. This third essay shows that CHW provide no analysis of duplicitous methods used by Fr. Bugnini in the composition of the Novus Ordo Mass (NO), nor do they report how ambivalent Pope Paul VI was about the changes. Most seriously CHW speak of the traditional Latin Mass (TLM) as being theological flawed and claim that it is clear that the Holy Spirit is the moving force behind the NO and fail to consider that a small group was imposing their view of liturgy on the whole Church.

CHW fail altogether to address the circumstances in which the NO was composed, who composed it, and how it was promulgated. It is a very disturbing story. I wonder if they have read Yves Chiron’s meticulous biography Annibale Bugnini: Reformer of the Liturgy,¹ which well documents Bugnini’s deviousness. Chiron is cautious about accepting the claim that Bugnini was a Mason, but for CHW not to acknowledge or address that elephant in the room as well as the substantiated claims that Bugnini operated by lying both to Paul VI and to the authors of the NO, and that there was an explicit intent to downplay Catholic elements in the liturgy for the sake of ecumenism with Protestants,² is to sidestep grave concerns about the actual origins of the NO.  …

Continue reading >>>