Every once in a while on this blog and elsewhere we have discussions about whether any traditionalist group out there, such as the FSSP or the ICK, have permission to use older versions of the Holy Week rites than those published in the 1962 Missale Romanum. Claims are made by some that they obtained special permission to use the pre-Pius XII reform of the Holy Week rites.
Today I went to visit my old haunts, the offices of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei. I explicitly asked whether any permission has ever been given to any group to use any version of the Holy Week rites other than what is published in the 1962 Missale Romanum (now just revised in the Good Friday Prayers).
The answer is "NO".
No permission has ever been given by the PCED to any group to use other than what is in the (now slightly revised) 1962 edition.
Any member of any group who says that they have such a permission is either misinformed or dissimulating.
Frankly, there are a lot of varia which have crept into celebrations of the 1962 Rite (Extraordinary Rite). When one has access to the Instructions of Popes and authoritative Roman Curial documents, it is disappointing to note that 'liturgical disobedience' is by no means restricted to practitioners of the Novus Ordo Missa.
To wit, and specifically (updated 2/12), Fr. Z also inquired about the 'second Confiteor':
I had another visit to my old offices of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei today and asked, again, about the use of the so-called "Second Confiteor".
It is NOT to be done in the older Mass now. There is no permission (except I believe pontifical Masses, as the rubrics indicate) to do a Second Confiteor at Mass with the 1962 Missale Romanum
This is a non-issue. A recent European trip confirmed that despite what the Ecclesia Dei Commission is required to say about the use of the 1962 Missal priests who say the traditional rite of Mass often use an older form without any bother from the chanceries whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteIn London, Wigratzbad and Rome itself this writer has personally witnessed the traditional Mass said in the pre-1962 form. This is not "disobedience" and the local Ordinaries are not cracking down on priests who prefer the older (and more beautiful, frankly) versions.
Again, this is a non-issue.
obedience to Roman directives is ALWAYS an issue, schmenz.
ReplyDeleteYour 'moral judgment' is irrelevant, by the way. A "non-issue" as it were.