Alfons M. Card.
Stickler S.D.B.
Vatican City,
November 27, 2004
Dear Friends,
You wish to issue a new edition
of the celebrated Short Critical Study of the New Order of Mass of
Cardinals Ottaviani & Bacci.
I can only fervently encourage
you in this and I bless your undertaking that it might result in making this
important text known to a greater number.
Indeed, the analysis of the
“Novus Ordo” made by these two eminent cardinals has lost none of its value nor,
unfortunately, its timeliness.
As a member of the preparatory
commissions and an expert in liturgy at the Second Vatican Council, I myself
lived through the profound upheavals which followed the liturgical reform.
The decree Sacrosanctum
Concilium would seem to suggest a reform in the bosom of the Catholic
Church, and not an upheaval accompanied by a hasty fabrication of new rituals.
These innovations opened the way too much for those who, perhaps without
consciously willing it, would allow, as our pope Paul VI said, “the smoke of
Satan” to enter the Church.
The results of the reform are
judged by many today to be devastating. This was the merit of Cardinals
Ottaviani and Bacci to discover very quickly that the radical modification of
the rites resulted in a fundamental change of doctrine.
Fortunately, the latin roman
Mass so-called of St Pius V has never been forbidden: priests and faithful can
always draw from the source of the Lex orandi (law of praying) and in
this way live faithfully the Lex credendi (law of believing).
It is, therefore, praiseworthy
and useful, as you plan, to make heard once again, 35 years afterwards, the
voice of these two princes of the Church, defenders of doctrine, catholic
Tradition and the Papacy.
Be assured, dear friends, of my
paternal blessing and of my prayers at the tomb of St. Peter.
Signed
Alfons M. Card.
Stickler
