Snip from a Michael Dimond interview with Fr. Wathen, which just makes better sense:
Question: The Council of Trent Canon 6 says “if anyone says the Mass contains errors, therefore should be abrogated let them be anathema”. Would something like that hold any weight pertaining to what pope Paul VI did? In a way he was saying that it did contain errors therefore should be abrogated did he not?
Fr. I would not say that his changing the Rite of the Mass was a suggestion that there was fault in the old Mass, that canon simply states that the doctrine expressed by the prayers and the ritual of the traditional Mass are thoroughly Catholic, that everyone may have confidence that there is no doctrinal error expressed by this Rite.
The matter of the new mass must be considered first of all why the new mass was introduced. Was it introduced because it was suggested there was some deficiency in the old mass, was it introduced for less cogent reasons? It was never suggested that there was some deficiency, it was suggested that there was room for improvement.
……no sufficient reason was ever given, and no one has a sufficient reason. The only reason they have is that one pope may override the rules and the laws of another. This is an error.
Question: Now people will say Father, that it could be changed because this is simply a matter of discipline, that the pope could change it because it’s not a matter of strictly faith and morals he could not make an ex cathedra statement to define the Mass, therefore the pope has the justification to establish a new rite – that’s what people are saying and that’s why your wrong father.
Fr. People have been given the idea that whatever the pope has the authority to do he may morally do, we deny both that the pope has the authority to introduce a new mass and we insist that the introduction of a totally new Rite with a questionable theology, and that is putting it mildly, the introduction of a new Rite with a questionable theology is not only unlawful, that is, it goes clearly contrary to the established law, but it is immoral, independent of the law of which the pope is bound.
People have the idea that the pope, because he is the head of the Church, has limitless authority. This is altogether wrong. He is not at all limitless in what he may do, he is strictly bound to what he must do and he is bound to adhere to what has been established. The role and the duty of the pope not to deviate from what has been established, but to make sure that all his subjects don’t deviate from it.
Question:
....Fr., there's an old legal principle which says; "he who makes the law can change the law", would this also apply in the Church? In other words, we had pope Paul VI making a change, did he not have a right to make this change and must not we, as Catholics, follow whatever change he authorizes?
Fr.
I do not agree that he who makes the law may always abrogate it, especially if he who makes the law is doing nothing else but enunciating and particularizing a tradition.
When pope Pius V established the Mass, he was merely canonizing a tradition. He was fixing something and making it irrevocable and unchangeable after centuries of development. Pope Pius V, once he made this law, had no right to change it simply because, that is an error. The pope's business is not to make and then to change, the pope's business is to preserve, to formulate, in order that there be a preservation of all that was established, even by the Apostles.
There was a period during the 60s in which changed began to be made in the traditional Latin mass. We know now that these changes were conditional. Which is to say that they had the purpose of conditioning people for a situation which the liturgy would always be subject to change. The changes were of various sorts, the purpose however was not so much the changes themselves, but to educate the people to a totally new idea, an anti-traditional idea, that the liturgy henceforth would be subject to indefinite change - which is to say not only will the external ritual be patient of an infinite variety of changes, but the doctrine also, the beliefs which the ritual expresses will also be under constant revolution........
…… The Mass of the Roman Rite, there is only one, Pius V said that there could never be but one, and he had the authority to impose this for all time.
If he did not have the authority to do so, even to the extent of binding all his successors, this is to say that he, the pope, did not even know the limits of his own authority. This is to say that this pope attempted to do something which he had no authority to do.
And we say well then if he did not have that authority, then his authority was limited. We say that if his authority is limited, then all his successors authority is limited also.
We say yes, the authority of the pope is limited, but it is not limited to establishing the liturgy of the Mass for all time, [rather] it is limited to where a successor cannot discard this Mass because of a whimsy or a deviation in Catholic belief, and there has to be a deviation in Catholic belief on the part of pope Paul VI who would introduce such a mass as what we have, the Novus Ordo Missae….
Topic: Did "Quo primum" exclude the possibility of additional missals? (Read 796 times)