Mass of Paul VI

"Novus Ordo Missae" (New Order of the Mass) and Mass of Paul VI are names given by its opponents to the revision of the liturgy of the Mass adopted by the Roman Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council.

The "Ordo Missae" (Order of Mass) is the section of the Roman Missal that contains the common prayers and general rubrics for the celebration of Mass, and in English is called the Ordinary of the Mass. Its title remains unchanged.

Over the centuries alterations were made on various occasions to the Roman Missal in the form in which it was promulgated by Pope Pius V in 1570 (see external link: Quo Primum), seven years after the final session of the Council of Trent. However, the revision promulgated by Pope Paul VI provoked a strong reaction owing to the theological significance of the many changes, which were outlined in part by Ottaviani and Bacci (see external link: A Short Critical Study).

One issue that is particularly palpable is the nearly universal shift in the physical orientation among the priest, the people, the tabernacle, and the altar. Neither in the part denominated "Ordo Missae" nor elsewhere, did the Roman Missal ever oblige the priest to face either towards or away from the people when celebrating Mass. Before the revision, it was customary for the altar to be built with the tabernacle situated upon it, with the overall arrangement permitting the people and the priest to face the same direction, as the priest led the people in prayer. Some altars were different: in Rome itself there were altars in churches large (such as Saint Peter's Basilica in the Vatican) and small (such as the church of the Four Crowned Saints) at which the priest faced the people throughout the Mass. This was explicitly allowed for in the pre-revision Missal (Ritus servandus in celebratione Missae, VI, 3). After the revision of the Roman Missal, it became customary for the priest to face the people, and to have the tabernacle removed to an arbitrary location, all to satisfy misplaced concerns that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass should become a communal or seder supper. Changes to the liturgy not found directly within the Novus Ordo Missae are nonetheless supported by it, for example by greatly reducing outward acts of reverence by the people for the Eucharist.

Similarly, it was a change in rules external to the Missal that, after the Second Vatican Council, permitted the use of vernacular language instead of Latin in the Mass. The Roman Catholic Church changed this rule some years before it promulgated the revised Roman Missal. Accordingly, the Novus Ordo Missae does not itself encompass all changes introduced into the Roman Catholic liturgy of the Mass since the Second Vatican Council, but is rather a synecdoche for those changes, and is a catalog of theological and liturgical difficulties which have occasioned great strain within the Church.