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Cardinal Ernesto Ruffini spoke more at Vatican II than any other bishop.
He would later go home to Palermo, saying:
“My brother bishops have destroyed the Church.”
When the SSPX calls the New Mass “evil,” people often twist this into a claim that the Eucharist is evil (God forbid), that the Mass is invalid, or that Catholics who attend it are evil. That is not the Society’s position.
“Evil” is used in its classical sense: the privation of a good that ought to be present. The criticism concerns what the rite itself removed, weakened, or obscured.
Compare the texts.
Traditional Offertory:
“Receive, O holy Father… this spotless host… for my innumerable sins… that it may avail unto salvation.”
New Offertory:
“Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation… we have received the bread we offer you… it will become for us the bread of life.”
The first explicitly speaks of a sacrificial offering, sin, and salvation. The second is based on a Jewish blessing formula and emphasizes bread offered as the “bread of life.”
The traditional rite contains repeated references to sacrifice, victim, propitiation, sin, the sacrificing priest, the intercession of the saints, and reverence toward the Real Presence. In the reform, many of these prayers, gestures, and repetitions were removed, reduced, or made optional.
This is why Michael Davies’ comparison with Cranmer matters.
Cranmer reformed the Catholic liturgy by:
- removing or altering explicitly sacrificial language
- suppressing the traditional Offertory
- moving emphasis from sacrifice toward a communal meal
- increasing vernacular worship
- removing prayers and ceremonies associated with specifically Catholic Eucharistic doctrine
- simplifying the inherited rite
Then compare the postconciliar reform:
- the traditional Offertory was removed
- sacrificial language was substantially reduced in several places
- the meal/banquet aspect received greater emphasis
- vernacular celebration became normal
- numerous traditional prayers and ceremonies disappeared
- the inherited Roman rite was extensively simplified
Look at what Cranmer removed from the Catholic Mass, then look at what the Consilium removed.
That does not make the Novus Ordo invalid or mean that Our Lord is not truly present. The SSPX accepts that a properly celebrated New Mass can be valid. Incense, beautiful vestments, Latin, chant, or ad orientem cannot solve the fundamental objection. They may make the celebration more reverent, but they do not restore the suppressed prayers or undo the watering down of Catholic doctrine.
These are only a few comparisons. The Offertory, Eucharistic Prayers, Communion rites, genuflections, signs of the cross, invocations of saints, priestly prayers, rubrics, altar orientation, and other changes could be examined in the same way.
The new rite is deprived of goods that the Mass of all Times possessed. According to the classical definition of evil as the privation of a due good, this is the sense in which the SSPX says the New Mass is evil.
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When he postures as a “fed-up MAGA dissident,” remember that he will support the Paypal Mafia-backed GOP nominee.