I was told by a Jesuit ordained on Holy Saturday 1956 (which allowed ordinations for two years IIRC) at the former Jesuit college Heythrop Park, Oxfordshire, UK that he, Fr Francis Hull, S.J., was to celebrate his first sung Mass the following day at a nearby parish the Jesuits had in their care, Holy Trinity, Chipping Norton.  When he arrived a female religious who provided sacristy support was complaining how the PP had made a mess on Holy Saturday with "his triple candle".

I also heard via a reliable friend of a priest who was in his 90s back in the 1990s who had spent his life in the North West of England (which, historically, had a higher proportion of Catholics).  He said that in 1956 when he was a curate his PP and several other neighbouring PPs all just carried on with the former rite as they found the changes discordant. I understand this continued until the SVC when they thought things might improve!

I also understand Mgr Gerald Tickel as Rector of the English College in Rome celebrated old Holy Week in Rome in 1956 and 1957.  Later when he became Bishop to the Armed Forces he carried on the same, using what we would term 'pre-55',  as another friend who reached the rank of Major in the Army regularly served his Mass.

My guess would be this would have been more common in Europe than the New World.

The 1955 missal's main change was to Holy Week.  Maybe there were also changes to the regular calendar?  I don't remember.  But I don't think the calendar changes were extreme.  You also have to remember that the Holy Week changes were "experimental" and not implemented everywhere.

The 1951 Paschal Vigil, and its successor the 1952 form were both experimental, the latter extended for three years ad libitum.  With Maxima redemptionis and its accompanying decrees the new forms were mandatory.

There was another decree, cuм nostra, in March 1955, which came into effect on 1st January, 1956.  That, inter alia, got rid of all but three Octaves, abolished the rank of semi-double, reduced the number of Vigils, and got rid of most of the 'prayers of the season' that were added after the collect etc at Mass on days below double rite.  There is an English version: https://www.divinumofficium.com/www/horas/Help/Rubrics/1955.txt

Titles II, III & V impacted on the celebration of Mass.

What’s a PP?

Parish priest

Thanks for your contributions Philip, this is what I kind of vaguely had in mind!

Forgive my dullness, but I’m trying to piece together in my mind what was happening on the ground in the 1950s, an endeavor complicated by my not having a firm grasp of what was precisely happening out of Rome re: the missal, the calendar, Holy Week, the liturgy, so I’m kind of trying to clarify in my mind two separate matters at once; your answers have helped clarify some things on both fronts.

My remedial knowledge is limited to: I know there’s a 1955 Holy Week rite which changed the rite significantly, I know there were new calendars in the 1950s, and I know (I think?) after 1962 the missal was changed such that the additional commemoration of saints in the propers on Sunday Mass was removed (every SSPX Mass I’ve ever attended doesn’t use them - there’s one proper and that’s it, the saint is ignored unless of course the rank of a particular saint’s feast is sufficiently high to outrank the Sunday).

Question: so that docuмent you linked above from divinumofficium, did it already contain the decree to no longer commemorate the saints feast day on Sundays for certain propers (second/third Collect, second/third Postcommunion etc)?

And I guess a clarification question: those priests you referenced, such as the 90 year old who always continued with the pre 1955 Holy Week - did they also ignore the 1962 missal changes with the intent of, as you indicate, hoping for things to be sorted out after V2 and just continuing in the meantime with practicing the Faith as they’d always known? And then after things obviously weren’t sorted out in V2, they continued quietly praying the Mass as they had always done, sans 1962/1950s changes? Hope these thoughts/questions have some semblance of coherence and aren’t too tangled/mangled. Thanks very much again for your help!

1) The 1950s saw two experimental Easter Vigils in 1951 and 1952 and then the reformed Holy Week in 1956.  There was also the decree I reference cuм nostra which effected the calendar, Mass and Office.  Also there was the reduction of the Eucharistic Fast in 1953 and 1957 and the Instruction on Sacred Music in 1958 which allowed commentators at Mass and rather reinforced the fashion of the Dialogue Mass.

2) With the 1956 changes to the rest of the year - apart from Holy Week - say if tomorrow, the feast of St Louis of France was on a Sunday: pre-55 at Sunday Mass, St Louis would be commemorated with a second collect, after that of Sunday, and a third prayer added 'of the season' which would have been A cunctis'; with the 1956 changes there would just be the second collect of St Louis; in 1962 St Louis would not be commemorated at all.  So the commemoration of saints at Sunday Mass ceased with MR1962 (with the exception of feasts of II Cl - as they had become then - who would get a commemoration at Low Mass but not sung/solemn Mass.

3) AFAIK with the older clergy who had 'resisted' generally became despondent.  Another late friend, Mr Ronald Warwick, wrote 'The Living Flame' a history of the first 25 years of the SSPX in Great Britain.  When the first priest for the society was ordained in 1971, Fr Peter Morgan, came back here he set up a number of Mass centres and had something like 20 elderly priests who then rallied to assist him.  They all used what we would now describe as 'pre-55'.  I also learnt from Mr Warwick that when the 'Heenan Indult' for England and Wales appeared the first public Mass, at the Carmelite Church in Kensington, London.  Mr Warwick was present at that Mass and despite the indult being for 1967 the 'whole works', as he put it came back. Judica me was said, there were three collects, the celebrant reading the Epistle and Gospel at the altar whilst the deacon and subdeacon chanted them, the humeral veil, the Confiteor at the communion of the faithful and the last Gospel.
About the same time Rome conceded a faculty for elderly priests to celebrate 1967 in lieu of 1970.  The vast majority of them, including one I knew very well in the 1990s, took that as permission to go back to 'pre-55'.

Very interesting.

My sense is that the consensus historical view today among traditional Catholics of every variety is something like: the 1950s changes were not given second thought as they occurred - neither was the 1962 missal - then the Novus Ordo came along and suddenly there was an awakening and those 1950s and 1962 changes were scrutinized as well by traditional Catholics, which scrutiny continues today with differences of opinion.

This seems to me the prevalent historical view - I may be wrong, maybe this isn’t how most traditional Catholics believe things happened? - and perhaps it’s a view so entrenched as to be nigh uncorrectable at this point.

I say uncorrectable, implying that it is wrong, because the existence of these old tradition-minded priests exposes the falsity of this view of historical events, which view I think is often used to dismiss concerns about the 1950s changes and the 1962 missal as a bit of an afterthought - eg “sure the 1962 missal was a pretty big change - but no one was cautious or skeptical about it or outright ignored it at the time, so the Novus Ordo is what the focus should be” seems to go the line of thinking. It seems there were, in fact, priests who were skeptical of the 1950s changes and 1962 missal, even as they occurred, and these priests of old, informed by their Catholic formation impossible (sadly) to fully replicate today, did not need the manifest problem that is the Novus Ordo to “jolt them awake” as it were; the changes that began in the 1950s, at least to some priests, were viewed as seriously problematic enough to warrant ignoring them.

The question becomes how many were there of these priests - a few? A dozen? Dozens? Hundreds? Insofar as numbers mean anything, perhaps their existence militates in favor of the idea that the pre-50s/pre-55/pre-62 differences are, in actuality, essential components to the crisis that are hidden in plain sight - perhaps much more crucial than even people staunchly in one camp or the other (eg I’ve seen old posts strongly advocating for the pre 1955 Holy Week, I’ve seen posts staunchly citing Archbishop Lefebvre in insisting the 1962 is fine) realize.

Further muddying the waters is the matter that it seems most who favor pre 1955 today are sede, yet the priests of old who rejected these changes in real time were (probably?) not sede.

In other words, the line that these priests of old - that is, the very first forerunners of traditional Catholicism - walked is not really walked or advocated by any trad group today - these priests were neither sede, and neither did they follow the 1955 changes or any thereafter. And, to repeat myself, because of their thoroughly Catholic formation in an era now lost, this would warrant considerable weight given to their conclusions if these priests were great in number, notwithstanding, say, Archbishop Lefebvre’s adopted positions.


Just some jumbled thoughts going through my mind

Well, it is the generally received account but does it stand up to historical analysis?

You might want to look at pp. 104-106 of this book.  I am afraid the reader has to log-in and virtually borrow the book for up to an hour but I would recommend it.

Certainly some people were very concerned in the 1950s. The English novelist Evelyn Waugh comes to mind along with the Welsh poet David Jones. There were certainly a number of priests who were uncomfortable with the changes but as to their exact number I fear at this distance in time it is impossible to give a forensic estimate.

I think you are incorrect to say the majority of those favouring 'pre-55' are 'sede'.  The majority of sedevacantists AFAIK follow all the changes, both liturgical and in Canon Law, until 1958.  It is only the ex-Econe sedevacantists, or those influenced by them, who do not.  However, a search on sites such as New Liturgical Movement for Holy Week posts would demonstrate the majority of celebrations of the old Holy Week are now 'indult'/diocesan.

There is a certain irony that the old Roman Holy Week was celebrated in Jerusalem at the church of the Holy Sepulchre through the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and until the mid-1990s as the 'status quo' arrangement meant if the Roman rite Catholics changed the times of their services they would lose their slot.  Since the mid-1990s they celebrate a variant of the modern Roman rite, with local adaptations, but the main services of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday are still early in the morning of those days.