Following the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI commissioned a committee of experts to develop a new rite of the Mass. After some initial trials and several experiments, the new form of the Mass was promulgated by the Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum on April 3, 1969, and was to come into effect on November 30 of the same year.
But the new Mass was already being judged. As early as spring 1969, a Short Critical Study provided a close and precise examination of it; Cardinals Ottaviani, Prefect of the Holy Office, and Bacci, Secretary of the Curia, signed it and presented it to the Pope on September 3, noting how the new rite "departs impressively, in its entirety as well as in its details, from the Catholic theology of the Holy Mass as formulated at the 22nd session of the Council of Trent."
Alas, this solemn warning was hardly heeded. Nevertheless, it remains highly relevant.
A crucial document for understanding the unprecedented spiritual crisis the Church is undergoing.
New revised and corrected edition.
147 x 210 mm.
56 pages.
