Mass Facing The People

Mass Facing The People

A practice which was the rarest curiosity until Vatican II has become so completely accepted that there is scarcely a church in the country where architects have not been called to redesign the altar and its surrounding sanctuary in conformity, as it is said, “with the Vatican decrees.”… The clergy as a body seem to have convinced themselves that such a form of celebration is possibly required for the celebration of the reformed liturgy. The claim that traditional altars must be destroyed and replaced with tables in order to conform to Church law is the standard response to complaints from the faithful. Partisans have no hesitation in stating publicly why “the altar should be turned towards the people at Mass.” “The short answer is because the bishops of the world meeting at the Vatican Council considered it necessary liturgical change so that the laity could become more involved in the offering.”

The truth is that the concept of a celebration deliberately oriented to face the people was an invention of Martin Luther. It had never been the ancient custom of the Catholic Church. As with most of the propaganda in favor of the liturgical revolution, the arguments in favor of Mass facing the people are no more than gratuitous assertions devoid of any factual basis.

There is no rule, rubric, regulation or law in existence within the Roman Rite stipulating that Mass shall be celebrated facing the people. The rubrics of the Novus Ordo Missae specifically envisage the traditional practice and instruct the priest to turn to face the congregation at various points and then to turn back to the altar, i.e., numbers 107, 115, 116, 122, 198, and 199 of the General Instruction on the Roman Missal (Institutio Generalis).

However, although there is no law commanding Mass to be celebrated facing the people, Article 262 of the Institutio Generalis could be interpreted as a mandate for altar smashing. A frequent criticism of the pre-conciliar Church is that it was “legalistic.” The pre-conciliar Church certainly did have rules and regulations and enforced them universally and impartially. There is a different form of legalism in the Conciliar Church. Rules and regulations are frequently invoked when they can be used to undermine the traditional faith, but they are frequently ignored with impunity by Liberals. Thus sanctions would be taken against a priest saying the Tridentine Mass but not against a priest giving Communion in the hand even before this had been authorized by the Vatican. Where smashing the altars is concerned, the legalism of the Conciliar Church would operate as follows. Its spokesmen would concede that there is no law ordering Mass facing the people but would claim that Article 262 of the Institutio Generalis stipulates that the main altar should be freestanding to make such a celebration possible – even if it is never used for such a celebration.

There is not a single reference to Mass facing the people anywhere in the documents of Vatican II. The first explicit reference to Mass facing the people appeared in the Instruction Inter Oecumenici promulgated by the Sacred Congregation of Rites on 26 September 1964. “It is better (praestat ut) for the main altar to be constructed away from the wall so that one can move round it without difficulty, and so that it can (peragi posit) be used for a celebration facing the people (No. 91).

The reference to the construction of altars would appear to make it clear that this article is applicable only to altars in new churches. However, the preceding article (No. 90) refers to “building new churches and in repairing and adapting old ones.” This article bases itself upon Article 124 of the Vatican II Liturgy Constitution. However, those who care to check the Constitution will find that this particular article does not refer to “repairing or adapting” old churches but only to the building of new ones. When reading the various documents purporting to implement the Liturgy Constitution it is always worth checking references back to the Constitution to discover whether it says what these documents allege.

When the General Instruction on the Roman Missal (Institutio Generalis) was published in 1969, the process was taken a step further. Article 262 is identical with Article 91 of the Instruction Inter Oecumenici with one crucial exception, the words “praestat ut” (it is better) have been removed so that it now states that: “The main altar should be constructed away from the wall so that one can move round it without difficulty and so that it can be used for a celebration facing the people.” A reference is then given to Inter Oecumenici, Article 91, which, as has been shown, does not say that the altar should be constructed away from the wall but that it is better that it should.

Another point of interest here is that both Inter Oecumenici and the Institutio Generalis were produced by Archbishop (then Father Bugnini)’s Consilium even though they were approved by the Pope and promulgated by the Sacred Congregation of Rites. The manner in which it “developed” the teaching of the Council on a freestanding altar and Mass facing the people provides a revealing example of the manner in which the Consilium did its work. This can be summarized as follows:

a. Vatican II does not mention a freestanding altar or Mass facing the people.

b. Article 124 of the Liturgy Constitution includes the recommendation that: “When churches are to be built, let great care be taken that they be suitable for the celebration of liturgical services and for the active participation of the faithful.” There is no mention of altars.

c. In 1964, the Consilium expands this sentence to include adapting old churches, brings up the subject of altars, and states that “it is better” that they should be freestanding.

d. In 1969, the Consilium states in the Institutio Generalis that the main altar should be freestanding and cites its own 1964 document (Inter Oecumenici), which does not state this, as its authority.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, in his book The Spirit of the Liturgy, criticizes the notion of priest as “presider” as though everything depends on a mere master of ceremonies. Instead he says,

“The turning of the priest toward the people has turned the community into a self-enclosed circle. In its outward form, it no longer opens out on what lies ahead and above, but is closed in on itself. The common turning toward the east was not a “celebration toward the wall”; it did not mean that the priest “had his back to the people”: the priest himself was not regarded as so important. For just as the congregation in the synagogue looked toward Jerusalem, so in the Christian liturgy the congregation looked together “toward the Lord”.

Whatever the beliefs and motives of priests who turned their altars round, it does not change the fact that they have acquiesced in another step in the Protestantization of our liturgy, a step which Protestants will certainly welcome as such. [Quoted from The Great Façade].