…and so finally the Holy Father admits that the Novus Ordo Missae is indeed…(?)
… as one clever commentator on Rorate Caeli says:
“There’s a saying: one man’s modus ponens is another man’s modus tollens.
(1) If something is liturgy, then it cannot be created or amended by the individual community or by experts but must be faithful to the universal forms of the Church.
(2) The Novus Ordo is liturgy (the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite).
(3) Therefore, the Novus Ordo cannot (or could not have been in the past) created or amended by the individual community or by experts but must be (or was) faithful to the universal forms of the Church.
(1) If something is liturgy, then it cannot be created or amended by the individual community or by experts but must be faithful to the universal forms of the Church.
(2) The Novus Ordo was created or amended by the individual community or by experts and is not faithful to the universal forms of the Church.
(3) Therefore, the Novus Ordo is not liturgy.
The Pope supplies the major premise, but I’m not sure which minor premise he intends us to supply…”
Of course, this is “the issue” that has so vexed the SSPX and other Old Roman Catholics who long ago realised that the contemporary Mass, even under its newly translated guise, is indeed, NOT a valid liturgy. Invalid by the simple understanding and definition of “what liturgy is” as the Holy Father has now so carefully and rather beautifully described.
One is left wondering then, why does His Holiness exclusively use the Novus Ordo Missae…? “Lex orandi… lex credendi…”
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