Even before Vatican II finished, there were huge changes in the Catholic Church, especially to the most visible signs of our faith – the Mass, and our Churches At the opening of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, words like “reform”, “modern” and “progressive” filled the headlines of newspapers describing the Council that was taking place. It was because these ideas would change the 2000 year old Church and lead us out of our Catholic ghettos.. The document produced by the Council relating to these changes to the Mass was Sacrosanctum Concillium. But did this document really give license to such radical changes? In this essay I will highlight the two main changes we have seen and argue that there is in fact no evidence in the document to suggest that the Council Fathers had the intention of altering the Mass so dramatically. Before the Vatican II Council, mass was a quiet, solemn and reverent occasion, where the prayers were in Latin and the priest faced God in the altar and on the crucifix – this traditional form of the mass is called the Tridentine Mass or simply the Latin Mass. The new mass that replaced it, and the Mass that young Catholics of my generation are familiar with, is very different in all these aspects and is called the Novus Ordo (New Order) Mass. The first and most obvious difference between the two masses is the use of Latin in the old Mass instead of the vernacular languages. “The Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth” (Gen 11:9, RSV). There is something to be said for the beauty of retaining Latin, because we know the variety of languages is a punishment inflicted at Babel, so that the Church now destroys sin and unites all mankind, everywhere, in the same language - Latin. The Council never prohibited the use of Latin in the Novus Ordo mass, yet it is rarely heard Schreiter, Robert. "The Impact of Vatican II," In The Twentieth Century: A Theological Overview, by Gregory Baum. (New York: Orbis, 1999), 163. http://ezproxy.acu.edu.au/login?url=http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/ereserve/copyright/documents/Baum6264.pdf.. Sacrosanctum Concillium said that Latin was to remain the language of the Roman Rite and that the vernacular was permitted in some parts of the Mass so that “the limits of its employment may be extended” Vatican II Council, Sacrosanctum Concillium, Constitution of the Sacred Liturgy, par 36.. Another notable change in the mass is the orientation of worship – the priest, who in the mass addresses all his prayers to God, now faces the people in the Novus Ordo Mass This practice started in Belgium without any official consent and spread quickly during the 1960’s before the Council even finished in imitation of the Protestant churches who rejected notions of sacrifice in their assemblies.. In the Latin Mass, the priest always prayed the prayers of the Mass facing the crucifix on the High Altar (which had the tabernacle on it). Thus in the Latin Mass the priest was said to be facing God, and so although in an assembly it would seem strange for the presider to have his back to the people present, it was normal in Catholic thinking for the priest to do this, because they understood he wasn’t addressing them, but addressing God. This is why Churches always faced East, because the sun rises in the East and the early Church expected Christ to return to us at the end of time – from the East, which direction the whole congregation and the priest faced Pierre-Marie Gy. "Cardinal Ratzinger’s The Spirit." Antiphon 11.1 (2007), 91. http://www.liturgysociety.org/JOURNAL/Volume11/Ratzinger_Gy.pdf.. Pope Benedict XVI, argued in his book, The Spirit of the Liturgy, that this "turning of the priest toward the people no longer opens out on what lies ahead and above [but] has turned the community into a self-enclosed circle” Joseph Ratzinger. The Spirit of the Liturgy. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), 80.. This change in the orientation of worship is not mentioned in Sacrosanctum Concillium at all, and has only been permitted in very recent years as an indult after the event and there has never been authoritative liturgical legislation requiring any change. A well-known liturgist His book, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, was published in English in 1993 and is endorsed by three cardinals. Shortly before the death of Msgr. Gamber, Cardinal Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, remarked that he was "the one scholar who, among the army of pseudo-liturgists, truly represents the liturgical thinking of the centre of the Church". Msgr. Gamber said "that the new Ordo of the Mass that has now emerged would not have been endorsed by the majority of the Council Fathers" Gamber, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, (San Juan Capistrano: Una Voce Press, 1993), xiii.. Cardinal John Heenan of Westminster explains in his book A Crown of Thorns that “subsequent changes were more radical than those intended by Pope John and the bishops who passed the decree on the liturgy” Heenan, John, A Crown of Thorns (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1974), 367.. After the Vatican II Council, priests stripped the altars of brass, Latin was abandoned, and beautiful high altars were destroyed and replaced with tables. In these ways, the mass celebrated for over 1500 years in the same manner changed radically. Yet, as demonstrated here, at least the most notable changes were never intended by the Council Fathers. While in hindsight it is unusual to think that such drastic changes occurred so quickly and without explicit license, it must be remembered that the Mass was not the only thing that changed in the 1960’s and the 1970’s. Certainly, the prevailing mood of the era was one of change and the Mass was only one of a number of things that was transformed. Bibliography Gamber, Klaus. The Reform of the Roman Liturgy. San Juan Capistrano: Una Voce Press, 1993. Gy, Pierre-Marie. "Cardinal Ratzinger’s The Spirit." Antiphon (11.1): 90-96, 2007. http://www.liturgysociety.org/JOURNAL/Volume11/Ratzinger_Gy.pdf. Heenan, John. A Crown of Thorns. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1974. Ratzinger, Joseph. The Spirit of the Liturgy. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000. Schreiter, Robert. "The Impact of Vatican II." In The Twentieth Century: A Theological Overview, by Gregory Baum. New York: Orbis, 1999. http://ezproxy.acu.edu.au/login?url=http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/ereserve/copyright/documents/Baum6264.pdf. Vatican II Council. Sacrosanctum Concillium: Constitution of the Sacred Liturgy. Vatican Archives Online, 1963. http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html.