In defense of the priest who wanted to sing the gospel in the middle of the sanctuary rather than at an ambo, you expressed the view that an appeal to tradition would seem to justify disregard of the novus ordo rubric.

In fact, tradition solidly supports singing the gospel from an ambo and offers little, if any, support for singing it in the middle of the sanctuary (or in the middle of the nave, which is probably what the person who opened the thread meant to say.)

A manifestly un-traditional practice was introduced in the Episcopal Church (and in some other Anglican provinces) after World Ward II--that of reading the Gospel in the middle of the nave. It was introduced as an attempted improvement over reading it at the altar or while turned toward the north wall of the sanctuary. The only precedent for the practice was in debased Byzantine practice. Few of the "advanced" school considered the possibility of proclaiming it from the puplit or lectern

In the draft revisions of the liturgy a rubric called for the gospel to be proclaimed "from a pulpit of lectern." Because people had become so attached to the unintelligent but prevalent custom of proclaiming the gospel from the middle of the nave, the rubric was revised in later drafts to "from the same lectern [as the other lessons], from the pulpit, or in the midst of the people]. The liturgical commission made the change very reluctantly. God knows why the practice persists. It is patently silly. The gospel is addressed to the people. When it is read on the floor in the midst of the nave, the reader's back is turned to half the congregation, and the text is not as easily heard as it would be if proclaimed from the ambo.

At Hagia Sophis the ambo stood in the middle of the nave. A fenced walkway connected the ambo to the sanctuary. Later, in Byzantine churches that lacked ambones, the the practice of proclaiming the gospel in the middle of the nave developed as a pointless evocation of the earlier practice. It is far from universal.

Ordo Romanus I calls for the proclamation of the Epistle and Gospel from Ambones.

In medieval Salisbury (except on ferias) the gospel was proclaimed from a "pulpitum," located in the rood loft. In medieval English churches that did not have ambones, lecterns, placed in the midst of the choir, were generally used.

Medieval English rubrics, incidentally, also called for the cantor of cantors to intone the gradual and to sing the gradual verse from the lectern.

Only when, because of the language barrier, the proclamation of the gospel had come to be of little interest to the people, did the erection and use of ambones in churches of the Roman rite seem no longer to be worth the effort. The practice of singing it to the north wall is even more stupid than that of singing it in the middle of the nave.

The post-Tridentine Caeremoniale Episcoporum permitted the gospel to be sung from an ambo or lectern. O'Connell recomended it in places where Latin was understood (e.g., seminaries).

I'm convinced that many conservative RCs look upon the use of the ambo for the lectiions,gradual/responsorial psalm , and gospel as nothing more than a moderninst innovation--for which they instinctively seek alternatives. I believe, however, that it represents the renewal of tradition in the best possible way.

The direction in the novus ordo that calls for the deacon to receive the celebrant's blessing before picking up the gospel book follows Ordo Romanus I. I don't understand how or when the later practice developed; but it makes no sense. Tradition--Eastern and Western--treats the gospel book as an object of veneration. To kneel or bow for a blessing while holding it seems to me to be an act of disrespect.