Transcript:
Bishop Athanasius Schneider: The text of the council about the liturgy is, in general, very vague and not concrete. It says the liturgy must be reformed, but it does not specify how. Only in some points does the council make specifications. For example, it mentions the use of Latin or the vernacular language, saying that in the liturgy, the vernacular may be used or should be given some place, but not totally vernacular. This is against the council expressly, because in two points the document Sacrosanctum Concilium states that Latin must be retained in the liturgy of the Roman Rite. The faithful and bishops are obliged to ensure that the faithful are able to know, pray, and sing the ordinary of the Mass clearly, including the Gloria and so on. Almost no one observes this prescription in the usual parishes of the Novus Ordo.
Next point: permission was given for concelebration, but only in some cases and in very vague terms. Then there was the suggestion that the Holy Scripture be more used in the liturgy. There could be cycles of years, and these could be given to the community under both aspects. These are concrete points.
More than that, it is not very specific. The order of Mass could be reformed and so on. This is a second point. The third, very important point, which today is perhaps not frequently known, is that a reform of the Mass was made according to the indications of the council fathers in 1965. At the beginning of 1965, the council was not yet finished; it concluded in December 1965. But in January or March 1965, a new order of Mass was published by the Pope. It was a very balanced and careful reform. When the council fathers returned to the last session in September 1965, they already celebrated the Mass according to this new order. The Pope said that this order of Mass was an application of the wishes of the council fathers. Everyone was happy with such a balanced and cautious reform. Even Archbishop Lefebvre welcomed this reform in 1965 and celebrated the Mass of 1965. In the seminary of the Society of St. Pius X, the first five years, they celebrated the 1965 Mass without objection because it was very carefully formulated.
For example, there were basically no substantial changes. The only change was that Psalm 42 at the beginning was removed, but it was also not prayed during Lent or at Requiem Masses. Even today, the traditional Mass does not use Psalm 42 on these occasions. So it was not a revolutionary change. Also, the Last Gospel was not prayed. But even before the council, on some occasions when there was another celebration, the Last Gospel was not prayed. So these two changes were introduced, but were not radical. The rest of the Mass order remained as it was before the council without changes in content. Only some rubrics were changed.
For example, some prayers were said aloud, such as the Secret and the prayers after the Our Father, the embolism. But this is not a substantial change because the prayers remained the same. The only visible change for the faithful was the use of the vernacular language. The entire 1965 Mass could be said in the vernacular with the exception of the Preface until the Our Father, which had to be in Latin, obligatorily in a silent voice with all the crosses and reflections. Nothing else was changed. It was a very balanced form.
The next important point is that two years later, in 1967, at the first Synod of Bishops after the council, Bugnini, who is called the revolutionary architect of the Novus Ordo, and his commission prepared a new form of Mass. This new normative Mass was basically the same as what we have today, the Novus Ordo, which was promulgated by Paul VI two years later in 1969. So in 1965, all the council fathers were mostly happy and in favor of a balanced, good reform. But in 1967, Bugnini proposed this revolutionary novelty and celebrated the new Novus Ordo in the presence of the Synod fathers, who were almost all members of the council from two years before. They voted on the draft of the Novus Ordo, and the majority rejected it. The Novus Ordo was basically rejected by the council fathers because, in 1967, most of the members were the same who had participated in the council two years before.