The main problem with any top down fabrication is that it veers away from the grass roots (organic) development of liturgy. Therefore anything created by a new council constitutes a fabrication. Vatican II did not call for new innovation or changes to the liturgy; It called for a renewed and deeper understanding of what has always existed through that famous philosophical paradigm called the hermeneutic of continuity, which was brought forward through our Holy Father.

There was a disconnect in the last few decades which created an anomoly of sorts and we are now trying to return to what is authentic as opposed to what is contrived. Music, of course, has had significant sway and many view the authentic as old fashion or going "backwards". That could not be any further from the truth as the entire focus of the liturgy post VII became anthropocentric instead of Christocentric. It became a celebration of "the happy meal together" at the expense of losing the focus of "the Most Holy Sacrifice".

Our minds and hearts need to undergo a transformation of attitude so that we can recapture the true nature of the liturgy, which is the authentic worship of God that carries forward, with utmost respect, the entirety of tradition expressed through a relevant expression of living faith-the old perfectly tied to the new. That is the challenge we face.

When you're done, I would suggest following up immediately with his The Restoration and Organic Development of the Roman Rite, which goes into great practical detail.

The lectionary I am aware of. I don't think the Council envisioned the multiple canons.

1. Whether the reformed liturgy should or should not be considered a continuation of the Roman rite is a debated topic. See, for example, Thomas Kocik's book "Reform of the Reform?"

2. The 1970 Missal was issued by the authority of Pope Paul VI and every Pope has the same authority to revise it. No new council is needed.

The 1970 Missal was issued by the authority of Pope Paul VI and every Pope has the same authority to revise it. No new council is needed.

Fan-tastic. All we need now is a Rainbow-Six-style squad of highly trained stealth liturgists to infiltrate the Vatican.

Myth: Benedict XVI freed up the restrictions on the Latin Mass.

Fact: Benedict XVI declared that the missal of 1962 was never abrogated and thus any suitably trained clergy may use it. They do not need direct permission from their Bishop to do so.

... and also a burning desire to improve it.

I hope this is a quibble: Notably, the Novus Ordo is a legitimate liturgy, not the legitimate liturgy.

Well, I guess the combustion engine counts as fiery... ;-)

mine caught fire once

Never said the Novus Ordo wasn't mainstream. "Legitimacy" translates into nothing about commonness or preference but everything about "liceity."

That was the whole of the point made by changing "the" to "a."

re: Ember Days and Rogation Days

Just because a lot of people don't farm doesn't mean that nobody does. It also doesn't mean that being liturgically/spiritually connected to the natural cycle of seasons is impossible or ill advised.

Sacrosanctum conciliumsaid that duplications and elements that with the passing of time had been added with little advantage to the Roman rite mass were to be eliminated. In the 1969 missal some of these elements were given greater prominence. If it is to conform to the Constitution, the new rite must be judiciously pruned. For in it as much as in the old, elements of secondary importance sometimes overshadow more important elements. The nature of various parts of the Mass the their relation to other parts is not always made clear.

Still, the reform accomplished some of the goals that the Constitution stated. Worshippers at a pre-Conciliar Mass (particularly a low mass) could easily occupy themselves with private devotions and not pray the mass. Those at a post-Conciliar Mass cannot. In 1962 the people's vocal participation in the rite was advanced as an ideal, but (at least on the East Coast of the U.S.) was not often attained--very seldom at sung Masses. Mere vocal participation may fall short of the "participation actuosa" to which the Constitution refers; yet it is surely and "outward and visible sign" of this participation, and its nearly complete absence encouraged the people to think that the Mass was being offered for them rather than by them. Nearly all parts of the new rite are audible. Intercession for the WORLD--and not merely for the church--is offered at every celebration. The new lectionary has indeed "opened up more treasures" from the scriptures to the people. Distracting ceremonial accretions, such as the subdeacon's holding the paten under a humeral veil during the Canon, the celebrant's making the sign of the cross with the paten, the movement of the missal from one end of the altar to the other, and the myriad crossings in the Canon have been eliminated. The transfer of the celebrant from the altar to the chair during the Liturgy of the Word and the proclamation of the lessons from the ambo have helped to clarify the character of this part of the liturgy, previously reduced to that of an opening exercise.

Liturgical innovation from "on high" was not a novelty. Pope Gelasius replaced the Solemn Collects after the Gospel/sermon with a Litany placed immediately after the Introit (the Deprecatio Gelasii). One of his successors a generation or two later dropped the petitions, leaving only the Kyrie. Pope Sergius (late 7th century) introduced the Agnus Dei as a fraction anthem. (The story of how the fraction later got moved to the Embolism--with which it has no connection--is fascinating, but too long to recount here. The post-Conciliar reform rightly moved it back to the Agnus.)

Although the speed of development in the late 4th-5th centuries may not have matched the speed of post-Conciliar development, it was certainly quite swift.

The "organic" grass-roots developments that have occurred during the past forty years are the very developments that the champions of "organic development" decry most vehemently as damned foolishness.

What would have happened if, instead of immediately developing a new missal, the Vatican had simply allowed local churches to make such changes in the 1962 rite as they deemed pastorally appropriate? God knows. We don't.

What would have happened if the post-Conciliar commission had simply pruned the old rite significantly, introduced the new lectionary and reassigned the chant propers to accord with it (allowing the use of longer psalmody in place of the graduals) replaced some of the presidential orations with better ones, re-introduced the Prayer of the Faithful (with a penitential petition, perhaps), restored Ordo Romanus 1-style ceremonial (as it did), removed the "per Christum..." conclusions and "Amens" from the various sections of the Canon, along with the long list of Roman saints, and added a post-Sanctus (such as that composed for Prayer III) to the Canon (so that the relation of the Te igitur to the preface, obscured by the introduction of the Sanctus in the 5th century, could again be made obvious)? I think the new missal would have been better. On the other hand, I think the new missal is better than the missal of 1962.

Ruth, not mixing the rites came out of a publication by Ecclesia Dei back when we had to petition the local bishop for permission to have the EF mass. That's where I saw it.

I maintain that the biggest problem with the NO is priests and people not following the rubrics. What we are supposed to do is clear, so it puzzles me why so many want to fuzz those rules and reinterpret them to match their own agendas.

I think GIRM assumes common sense among well-meaning adults. Perhaps that's the real problem.

If I may come back to the original question about what "implementing what the Council asked for", I would raise two thoughts.

1) The Pope doesn't need the authority of a council to reform the liturgy. The reform of the liturgy was promulgated by His Holiness Paul VI.

2) In order to reform the Missal of Paul VI, or to implement what the Council allegedly asked for, one must start from the place at which the Council did, or Paul VI did in enacting reform. Imagine someone saying he wanted to "reform" the laws of ownership. Each thing to be discussed as to whose it SHOULD be, according to the reform would need to be in the proper hands before being exchanged. Therefore, even if one didn't actually restore the 1962 Missal in all its glory and abolish the reforms of Pope Paul VI, one would need to reform the liturgy organically from that point, not from the current, inorganic state.

Charles, perhaps that's a bad example. But the point is that many rubrics like that are unclear in the OF. Common sense can take us only so far. If you have a choice between options, why not go with the option of continuity?

This is not a reply. This is just a quotable quote ...

The Bugnini liturgy is an arbitrary patchwork which does not meet the requirements of the Liturgical Constitution of the Second Vatican Council according to which all accidental innovations must spring organically from tradition and yield genuine spiritual benefit.

So it's Catholic, but not distinctively Roman.

So there are contrary principles at play? Like what?

Mentioning a thing once has no bearing on its importance. If dad tells his kid to stop hitting his sister once --- well, maybe that's because it should only take once.

On top if this, organic development is underscored, and heavily, by the Holy Father's admonition to read the documents with a hermeneutic of continuity.

Assume that the council did not emphasize it as much as current theories do: So what? Continuity --- and "organic development" --- are critical to the current phase of the reform of the reform. Emphasizing it more than the council, if that is indeed what these theorists are doing, may act as a corrective.

Much like scripture or any work of theology, SC (and all the V2 documents) is open to a wide variety of legitimate interpretations. By "legitimate," I don't mean precisely "right," (in a relativistic sense) but rather: smart and sincere people who are well acquainted with the traditions of the church can read SC and come to different conclusions about what it means, or what it was supposed to mean.

Many traditionalists, and I would guess CMAA generally, view SC in a particular way, influenced both by B16's "hermaneutic of continuity" and also by (their likewise interpreted reading of) previous documents such TLS.

The much maligned (here) USCCB document "Sing to the Lord," presents (among other things) a view of SC which is both more progressive (in the conventional sense) and also more mainstream (in the sense of more widely held). Whatever your opinions on it's merit or legitimacy, I highly suggest reading that document with an open mind, as it lays out an interpretation of SC which is quite different than the one usually expressed in the CMAA echo chambers.

Heck, even this humble blogger has thrown in with a commentary on the matter.

Now, perhaps one or another of these reasonable interpretations is better, or more right, or is completely right. But perhaps its more like the US Constitution (or strikes in baseball)- it doesn't really mean anything specific until those with the authority to make judgements do so.

So, my point is: It's fine to think you're right. We all think we're right. And it's fine to argue about it (up to a point). But don't fall into the increasingly common trap of assuming that anyone who disagrees with you is either misinformed or heretical.

Liam -
Yeah, I was really trying to reinforce what I understood to be your point.
And your observation of Anglo vs. Roman understanding of "law" is (I believe) spot on, and a large part of the problem.

Nitpicky:

. In 1962 the people's vocal participation in the rite was advanced as an ideal

Actually, that was advanced several hundred years PRIOR to 1962, but most often and forcefully by Pius X in the early 1900's.