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Dear Fr. Patrick Perez,

I read your recent article The Missal Crisis of '62 on the TIA website with your concerns about the motu proprios of recent years and I am curious for you to comment on a couple things.

I attend an SSPX chapel in northern NY and the “dialogue Mass” is said there. One of the former pastors wanted to “kill it” from the chapel, and to my and my wife’s minds always reminded us of the Novus Ordo. I told Father at the time of our conversation that I would back him up in the chapel if he tried to kill it, but it never happened and I don’t know why.

Also, lately our present pastor has introduced and/or allowed the “new” practice of having the congregation say aloud the triple Domine non sum dignus... before Communion, which I had not heard done in any Traditional chapel before now... also, reminding one of the Novus Ordo.

Since the SSPX uses the 1962 Missal officially, but maintains the second Confiteor for the faithful and “allows” these other things mentioned above, I can only conclude that the most accurate thing that can be said is that they use a “hybrid” Missal in practice.

I would whole-heartedly support an effort to print a pre-1962 (non-hybrid) missal, but my burning question is why hasn’t this been done already? Why hasn’t the SSPX done it? I bought a ’62 because that’s what was advertised in the Angelus.

I’m trying to be meek or humble, but is one to check one’s brains at the door when he joins a chapel of a given Traditionalist group?

Comments, directions?

     B.L.

     Traditional Catholic, married, father of 5

Fr. Perez responds:


Dear Mr. B.L.,

Greetings! TIA forwarded your question to me, so I am answering you.

The subject of the 1962 Missal is a very touchy one with regards to the SSPX, as, obviously, they use that Missal exclusively as far as I can tell. Their reasons for using it, however, do not seem to me all that valid.

I have discussed this with some priests of the Society, and what they give as reasons for using this Missal are:

1. Archbishop Lefebvre approved of it and used it, and

2. Since this is the last edition of the Missale still recognizable as traditional, contains no heresy, and was widely accepted at the time of its issue, then under obedience we must accept and use it.

In response to Reason 1, I would say that Archbishop Lefebvre used the interim Missale of 1965 for nine years in the Society before his seminarians virtually forced him to use the traditional Missal, so that cannot be a good reason.

Furthermore, remember that since the death of the Archbishop the yardstick of what the Society would do in most cases is not what is most reasonable in all cases (such as this), but what the Archbishop did while alive. Hardly logical.

Another note on that point: I know a priest of the Society who knew the Archbishop quite well, and according to him the Archbishop was seriously considering making the pre-1955 Missale normative for the SSPX when, unfortunately for all of us, death took him.

In response to Reason 2, I would say that while it is unquestionably the last edition of the Missale recognizable as traditional, it is still quite compromised, as per the arguments in my article.

Why would a priest use a Missale with new rites introduced into it by a proven Freemason when there is an alternative available which we know is unadulterated? I believe myself no more obliged to use the 1962 Missale under obedience than I am obliged under obedience to accept the docuмents of Vatican II. One simply cannot be obliged to accept and propagate something opposed to the tradition of the Church, even liturgically.

As for it containing no heresy: possibly. But hula girls at Mass is not, strictly speaking, heretical, but neither is it appropriate. There are other reasons for rejecting something besides heresy.

As for why no one has yet reprinted the pre-1955 Missale Romanum, it simply comes down to "the bottom line". If SSPX is not going to use it (yet), then there goes a large percentage of the potential market. Likewise the Indult situation. If the 1962 is specified as a condition of the indult, then they won't be that interested in buying one either, and there goes the other greatest percentage of the potential market.

I am greatly disturbed and saddened that the Society is pushing ahead with its plan to make the "dialogue Mass" the norm in all its chapels. It is a precursor of the Novus Ordo, but remember who controls the Society: the French, and, to some extent, the Germans, and they have a virtual obsession with both the dialogue Mass and this notion of "full and active participation."

You would not believe what the typical SSPX Mass in Europe looks like! In some places, such as Germany, I have seen Society Masses done mostly in the vernacular, with the laity answering everything. Quite the mess.

By the way, if you question the dialogue Mass or this audience participation thing, they will usually give you a reprint of an Angelus article written some years ago which quotes three papal docuмents, although I use the word "quotes" loosely here. When you read these citations you are, indeed, left with the impression that Pope St. Pius X, and Pope Pius XII were in favor of such things, until you look up the docuмents quoted for yourself, and find that the author of the Angelus article, an SSPX priest and a Frenchman (Fr. de la Place), has conveniently grossly mistranslated or misquoted the original docuмents, and those Popes do not say or imply anything like what the article says they do. In my opinion this was quite unscholarly, if not downright deceptive.

I hope that I have sufficiently addressed your questions. If not, feel free to contact me again.

     In Cordibus Iesu et Mariae,

     Fr. Patrick J. Perez

I've read over some articles since I wrote this last night, and the first thing that comes to mind, is that this would require a fairly high level of comfort with Latin pronunciation, and, ideally, understanding what one were saying.  It's something you're simply not going to have at a parish church, because most people's minds simply don't go that far.  The result could be risible gibberish, not unlike George Carlin's mockery of Latin in the Mass as "my-father-can-beat-your-father-at-DO-MI-NOES... no-he-CAN'T" (imagine this chanted and you'll get the idea).

Just because you, or I, or any altar server, can handle at least the minimal Latin needed for the responses, doesn't mean that the average Joe or Jane in the pew could.  So maybe the Dialogue Mass wasn't such a great idea after all.

For me, the issues with the dialogue Mass have nothing to do with superficial aesthetics (eg., how well or poorly it is sung), but with the liturgical-theological implications of why it was invented in the first place.

If these are women at the TLM, then this betrays an utter ignorance of what the Canon is.  I won't try to touch their subjective motives --- they may think this is perfectly appropriate -- but it is the part of the Mass that belongs solely to the priest.

In the Novus Ordo, it could indicate anything from a similar ignorance in good faith, to a distorted idea that "we are all Church celebrating the Eucharist together and we must all join in", or worse, women wanting to be priests themselves and LARPing the role of the priest.