A Catholic Analysis of the New Mass
By Raymond Taouk
The History and Nature of the Tridentine Mass and Problems with the New Mass
In 1970, Pope Paul VI issued a New Order of the Mass that is now used throughout the world in Catholic churches. Before this time, Roman Rite of the Mass or what is commonly referred to as the “Tridentine” or “Latin” Mass, was used by the Church. The Canon, or main part, of this Tridentine Mass, “goes back without essential change, to the age when it developed out of the oldest liturgy of all. It is still redolent of that liturgy, of the days when Caesar ruled the world. The final result of our enquiry is that in spite of unresolved problems, in spite of later changes there is not in Christendom another rite so venerable as ours” (Fortescue Adrian) [i] which “no one has ventured to touch it except in unimportant details.” [ii] Thus the traditional Roman Mass in all its essentials was passed on by St. Peter, the first pope, and reached its complete perfection with Popes St. Damasus (fourth century) and St. Gregory the Great (sixth century).
Blessed Pope Pius IX, when requested to add the name of St. Joseph to the Canon, replied: “I am only the Pope. What power have I to touch the Canon?” By this he sought to indicated not only that he was aware of the sacredness of the liturgy and that it ought not to be dealt with as some common issue but also that the Popes of the Church have always acknowledge that the liturgical worship of the Church, touches to the center of the faith itself. For this reason when Pope Gregory (590-604) sought to add the words “diesque nostros in tua pace disponas” [may you order our days in Thy peace] to the Hanc Igitur of the Canon, the Catholics of Rome were so outraged at this act that they threatened to kill him because he had dared to touch the Sacred Liturgy. From that time, no pope dared to change the Ordo of the Traditional Latin Mass. The Mass was affirmed to be complete and unchangeable in the mind of the Church. The Council of Trent taught the same in the following Canon: “If anyone says that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church… may be changed by any pastor of the Churches to any new ones: let him be anathema.” [iii] Because of the hallowed sacredness of the Roman Rite and to protect it, Pope St. Pius V codified the Traditional Latin Mass using the strongest language in the proclamation Quo Primum in 1570. It says in part:
“At no time in the future can a priest, whether secular or order priest, ever be forced to use any other way of saying Mass. And in order once and for all to preclude any scruples of conscience and fear of ecclesiastical penalties and censures, we declare herewith that it is by virtue of our Apostolic authority that we decree and prescribe that this present order and decree of ours is to last in perpetuity, and never at a future date can it be revoked or amended legally. . . . “And if, nevertheless, anyone would dare attempt any action contrary to this order of ours, handed down for all times, let him know that he has incurred the wrath of Almighty God, and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.”
This Mass that Pope St. Pius V was confirming in Quo Primum was not some new construct like the Novus Ordo Missae (the New Order of Mass), but was essentially the Apostolic Mass of Sts. Peter and Paul at Rome. Nor is it the Mass of some particular area of the Church like the Eastern rites, but it is the universal rite of the Church, the rite of the Holy See.
The Pope as the guardian of the Deposit of Faith has a duty to preserve the liturgy in intact. As Cardinal Ratzinger recently pointed out that the idea "that the liturgy is in fact something given and not a reality to be manipulated at will, had completely disappeared from the consciousness of Western Catholics. Yet Vatican I in 1870 had defined the Pope to be, not an absolute monarch, but the guarantor of obedience to the revealed word. The legitimacy of his power was bound up above all with his transmitting of the Faith. This fidelity to the deposit of the Faith and to its transmission concerns in a quite special way the liturgy. No authority can “fabricate” a liturgy. The Pope himself is only the humble servant of its homogenous development, its integrity, and the permanence of its identity”. [iv]
According to the common opinion of Catholic theologians throughout the centuries, any pope who “wished to overturn the rites of the Church based on Apostolic Tradition would become a schismatic, not to be obeyed”. [v]
The New Rite of Mass other wise
know as the Novus Ordo Mass is essentially a non Catholic rite of worship as it
breaks with true liturgical development. This point in essence has also been
affirmed by Cardinal Ratzinger (now pope Benedict XVI) when he stated openly
that : " The new Missal was published as if it were a book put together by
professors, not a phase in a continual growth. Such a thing has never
happened before. It is absolutely contrary to the laws of liturgical
growth. --Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, as Prefect of the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, Feast of Faith (San Francisco: Ignatius
Press, 1986), pp. 81, 86
When Paul VI introduced the New
Mass he put in the new Missal “We hope that the Missal will be received by the
Faithful.”
[vi]
However to impose a law the Pope must make it clear to the Church that a Law is
being imposed. He did not do so
[vii]. What Paul VI did had nothing to do with the
Church’s indefectibility or the Pope’s infallibility. Paul VI said on November
19, 1969: “This Rite (New Mass) and its related rubrics are not in
themselves a dogmatic definition.”
[viii] . Paul VI did not and could not change the
Roman Rite of the Mass.[ix]
This was acknowledged by Pope John Paul II who after
asking a commission of nine cardinals if the Latin Mass had ever been legally
forbidden or if any bishop could forbid any priest from celebrating the
Tridentine Mass. To the former question the response of eight (of the nine)
cardinals was that no, the Mass of St. Pius V has never been suppressed, while
to the latter question the nine cardinals unanimously agreed that no bishop
may forbid a Catholic priest from saying the Tridentate Mass.
[x] The nine Cardinals were Palazzini, Innocenti,
Casaroli, Oddi, Ratzinger, Stickler, Mayer, Gantin, and Tomko.
[xi] The same has been recently affirmed by Pope
Benedict XVI in his Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum (7 July 2007).
The Destruction of Catholic worship is the Destruction of the Catholic Faith
The Church has always set forth the firm and clear principle that: “The way we worship is the way we believe” [xii]. This is because the doctrinal truths of the Faith are embodied in the worship we offer to God. In other words, it is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that teaches us our theology, not the other way around. The Mass comprises the Apostolic Tradition of faith and morals in its very essence. Every doctrine essential to the faith is taught in the text of the Mass. As both Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacchi have pointed out “it is clear that the Novus Ordo no longer intends to present the faith as taught by the Council of Trent. Pope Leo XIII points out that the Church’s enemies have always understood this principle very well as “ They knew only too well the intimate bond that unites faith with worship, “the law of belief with the law of prayer,” and so, under the pretext of restoring it to its primitive form, they corrupted the order of the liturgy in many respects to adapt it to the errors of the Innovators.” [xiii] Again, even Luther understood this principle so well that he coined the slogan: “Take away the Mass, destroy the Church.” [xiv]
For this reason St Alphonsus Liguori explains that “The devil has always attempted, by means of the heretics, to deprive the world of the Mass, making them precursors of the Anti-Christ, who, before anything else, will try to abolish and will actually abolish the Holy Sacrament of the altar, as a punishment for the sins of men, according to the prediction of Daniel “And strength was given him against the continual sacrifice” (Daniel 8:12). [xv]
Shortly before the introduction of the New Mass Pope Pius XII declared “I am worried by the Blessed Virgins Messages to Lucy at Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a divine warning against the Suicide that would be represented by the alteration of the faith, in her liturgy”[xvi].
Now when you place the prayers and ceremonies of the traditional Latin Mass side by side with those of the New Mass, it is easy to see how much of the Church’s traditional doctrine has been “edited out” – and the “editing” always seems to have been done on those parts of the Mass expressing some Catholic doctrine which Protestants find “offensive.”
Clearly, then, the “new liturgy reflects a new ecclesiology, whereas the old reflects another ecclesiology” (Cardinal Benelli,) [xvii] quite foreign to the Catholic Church. This ultimately means as Rev. Gelineau, S.J , (One of the “experts” who co-authored the New Mass) points out, namely that “The New Mass is a different liturgy. This needs to be said without ambiguity. The Roman Rite, as we knew it, no longer exists. It has been destroyed.” [xviii]
Cranmer’s Protestant Reformation incorporated into the New Liturgy
The New Mass has a clear resemblance to the protestant “worship service” both in its origin and in its content. For example, in 1547, as the first stage of Bishop Cranmer’s liturgical reform the Epistle and Gospel were read at Mass in English. In 1549, the entire Mass was translated into English in a new “Prayer Book” which was now defined as “The Mass or Lord’s Supper." In 1551, a new ceremonial of religion was imposed. This included replacing the altar with a table. The altars were torn down, and movable tables substituted.
The switch between the priest facing east and now "facing the people" is another reform. They switched the orientation of the priest to reflect their new 'Mass', or Communion Service: The only sacrifice in their worship was a sacrifice of praise and self-giving by the "people of God". In the Ordinary of the Mass points in which the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist and the Real Presence of Christ as a Victim are expressed were suppressed and eliminated or replaced by non-committal words.
Unfortunately the Novus Ordo (New Mass) has adopted most of Cranmer's innovation to the point that they resemble each other, while both mutually exclude the elements of true Catholic Worship. At First, there were little introductions of the vernacular into the Mass. Then, the entire Mass was in the vernacular. Finally, the entire New Mass was re-written' in consultation with 6 Protestant ministers[xix]. This process, after Vatican II took six years, Cranmer's reformation took only five years.
When you line up the New Mass with the Anglican schismatic Book of Common Prayer (1549), they are almost identical; in fact, the Book of Common Prayer is more reverent than the New Mass[xx]. The fact that the New Mass resembles the protestant prayer service prompted Mr. M. G. Siegvalt, a professor of dogmatic theology in the Protestant faculty at Strasbourg to affirm: "... nothing in the renewed Catholic Mass need really trouble the Evangelical Protestant " [xxi] This should not surprise anyone since "The intention of Pope Paul VI with regard to what is commonly called the Mass, was to reform the Catholic Liturgy in such a way that it should almost coincide with the Protestant liturgy. There was with Pope Paul VI an ecumenical intention to remove, or, at least to correct, or, at least to relax, what was too Catholic in the traditional sense in the Mass and, I repeat, to get the Catholic Mass closer to the Calvinist mass."[xxii]
A brief comparison between the Tridentine Mass and the New Mass will confirm the truth of this statement:
|
The True Mass |
Protestant Communion Service |
The New Mass [xxiii] |
|
Latin Language used |
Vernacular |
Vernacular [xxiv] |
|
Much of the liturgy inaudible |
The entire service audible |
The entire service audible [xxv] |
|
No Lay Readers and Lay Ministers of Communion |
Lay Readers and Lay Ministers of Communion |
Lay Readers and Lay Ministers of Communion [xxvi] |
|
Clearly performing solemn rites upon an altar facing east |
A meal served upon a table often facing the congregation |
A meal served upon a table often facing the congregation [xxvii] |
|
Kneeling through long periods of the service, particularly at reception of communion |
Little kneeling. Communion received standing |
Little kneeling. Communion received standing |
|
The People receive holy communion on the tongue |
Communion given in the hand |
Communion given in the hand [xxviii] |
|
Communion received only under one kind |
Communion received under both kinds |
Communion received under both kinds [xxix] |
|
Frequent liturgical reference to the doctrines of sacrifice and the True Presence |
Little or no reference to the offering of any sacrifice beyond that of the congregation itself. Some references to the Body and Blood of Christ which could give the impression of belief in the true presence |
Little or no reference to the offering of any sacrifice beyond that of the congregation itself. Some references to the Body and Blood of Christ which could give the impression of belief in the true presence [xxx] |
|
An atmosphere of reverence and respect throughout the ceremony |
A "casual" atmosphere throughout the service |
A "casual" atmosphere throughout the service |
It is interesting to note that, as the New "Mass" is so "similar" to the Anglican (Protestant) "Mass", what are we Catholics to say of the hundreds of Martyrs in England during the Protestant Revolt who shed their blood, endured great hardships and trials, and even lost their very lives because they refused to attend the Anglican "Mass"? Now, as if the blood of these martyrs [xxxi] were worthless, we dare to conform the Catholic Mass to that of the Anglicans! (It is worth noting that the Anglican "Mass" of the 16th century is far more orthodox and reverent than that of the 20th century, having undergone several "revisions" and "renewals") Are we not, in all truth, declaring by this action that these holy martyrs shed their blood in vane? Such a position is clearly a violation of the first commandment — degrading and blaspheming the saints, their lives and their martyrdoms in such a manner is hardly something that is pleasing to God.
Fruits of the New Mass
"By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so, every good tree brings forth good fruit, and the evil tree brings forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit; neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit." (Matt. 7:15-17) Let us look at the fruits that the New Mass has produced since its introduction:
From 1965 to 1973, between 22,000 and 25,000 priests left the priesthood to get married. Today, this figure has reached over 110,000. 157,000 out of 365,000 (43%) Catholic parishes have no resident priest. In 1970 there were 1,003,670 women religious with perpetual or provisional vows; in 1992 that number was down to 655,031. The official 1998 Catholic Directory for the US revealed that the number of seminarians is now only 1,700, a decline of almost 97% from the 1965 figure of 48,992. In countries such as France and Holland the percentage of Catholics at Mass each Sunday has declined to a single digit. In the U.S., attendance has declined from 71 percent in 1963 to 25 percent in 1993, a decrease of 65 percent. Newsweek polls and surveys show that only 15% of Catholics believe they should always obey Church teaching, nearly as many Catholics think abortion is permissible as non-Catholics, and 75% of Catholics disagree with Church teaching forbidding divorce and contraception. Another study revealed that only 25% of Catholics now believe in the Real Presence and only 50% of the priests. [xxxii]
Who could possibly claim that there is not a terrible crisis of Faith in the Catholic Church resulting from the liturgical innovations? Such are the fruits of the New Mass. The disastrous effects of the New Liturgy has been confirmed by Cardinal Ratzinger who openly said, “I am convinced that the ecclesial crisis in which we find ourselves today depends in great part on the collapse of the liturgy". [xxxiii]
From the aforementioned, we have ample evidence that the New Mass has had disastrous consequences for Church and upon those who attend it.
Reasons why we shouldn't attend the New Mass
Today as Cardinal Ottaviani has stated, “the true Catholic, by the promulgation of the Novus Ordo, is faced with the tragic necessity of a choice”. [xxxiv] This is because the New Mass is harmful to the faith for “it is clear that the Novus Ordo no longer intends to present the faith as taught by the Council of Trent. Yet the Catholic conscience is bound to that faith forever” [xxxv]. This is clear to anyone who has observed the sad changes in the Church for the past 30 years. The continued attendance at the New Mass eventually causes many to have a false notion both in regards to Catholic worship [xxxvi] and Catholic Doctrine [xxxvii], which often leads to a loss of the faith. The dissimulation of Catholic elements in the New Mass Catholics have a duty to avoid the attending it as they would any other non-Catholic rite of worship. [xxxviii]
When England began to go Protestant, many Englishmen who would have liked to remain Catholic were confused. Indeed some were so muddled that they asked the fathers at the Council of Trent in 1562 whether they could attend the Anglican common prayer and sermons. The answer was an unequivocal: "No!" This decision was reaffirmed in 1566, yet some Catholics still tried to serve two masters, the old and the new religion. The desire of social status, fear, and ignorance led many to abandon the Faith while retaining the name of "Catholic."
Even prior to this, during the 4th century, St. Jerome tells us that 80% of the Catholic bishops had accepted the Arian heresy and that "the entire world groaned and was astonished to find itself Arian". [xxxix] Yet nevertheless the faithful Catholics during this period of Church history courageously rejected the New order that was imposed upon them. They took public oaths against it. They refused to follow the New Order pope of the time. They wouldn't set foot into the New churches of the Arians. Here is how St. Basil the Great described the situation:
“Matters have come to this pass: the people have left their houses of prayer and assembled in the deserts, -- a pitiable sight; women and children, old men, and men otherwise infirm, wretchedly faring in the open air, amid most profuse rains and snow-storms and winds and frosts of winter; and again in summer under a scorching sun. To this they submit because they will have no part of the wicked Arian leaven.”
Do we have their Faith? Do we have their courage? Or will Our Lord treat us like the lukewarm Laodiceans and vomit us moderns out of his mouth? [xl]
Conclusion
As Catholics, our first obligation and the highest law is the glory of God and the salvation of our souls [xli]. The means through which we save our souls are the Catholic Faith and the Catholic sacraments. So long as the true Mass is not restored the crisis in the Church will only continue only worsen.
Pray that Our Lord will grant to our Holy Father the Pope and the bishops of the Church the grace to restore the Traditional Roman rite fully throughout the entire Church.
[i] The Mass, London, 1917, p213
[ii] Ibid. p.213
[iii] Canon 13 on the Sacraments, Session VII, March 3, 1547
[iv] Spirit of the Liturgy, Ad Solem, 201, p. 134
[v] Francisco Suarez (1548-1617), S.J., "Most Exalted and Pius Doctor," De Charitate, Disputatio XII de Schismate, sectio 1
[vi] April 3, 1969, Paragraph:13
[vii] According to Canon Law any custom which is centuries old or exists from time immemorial may be considered abrogated only when such an abrogation is explicitly declared (1983) can. 28. No Church document has ever explicitly revoked the Latin Mass (not that it could be done anyhow in view of Quo primum without a serious departure from the Catholic faith) as a mere “hope” or “wish” does not constitute a promulgation or an abrogation.
[viii] Alloction on 19 Nov. 1969
[ix] The Power of the Pope can only be "unto edification and not unto destruction" - II Cor 13:10
[x] Latin Mass Magazine, Summer 1995, p.14. Even recently on May 24, 2003 at a Tridentine Mass celebrated by Cardinal Castrill Hoyos in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, the Cardinal openly affirmed that "The old Roman rite preserves its right of citzenship in the Church and cannot be considered extinguished."
[xi] The Fatima Crusader, 1990
[xii] lex orandis, lex credendi - Pope St Pius V
[xiii] Apostolicae Curae, Septembeer 13, 1896
[xiv] Fr. Paul Trinchard, Holy Mass, Holy Mary (MAETA: P.O. Box 6012, Metairie, LA, 1997), p. 41.
[xv] Verita della Fede, Pt. iii, Ch. viii.9-10
[xvi] Msgr. Eugenio Pacelli, Pie XII Devant L’Histoire, Pg. 52 by Msgr. Roche.
[xvii] Christian order, Oct. 1978
[xviii] POPE PAUL'S NEW MASS, By Michael Davies, p.78.,
[xix] The 6 Protestant Ministers who helped in the fabrication of the New Mass were Dr. George, Canon Jasper, Dr. Shepherd, Dr. Kunneth, Dr. Smith, and Brother Max Thurian ( Itináraires, December 1973 Issue.). It is important to note here that they didn’t merely "observe", as some claim, but that they had an active place in the Concilium, which was responsible for drawing up the New Mass. In 1967, Cardinal W. W. Baum, who was executive director of the American Catholic Bishop’s Commission on Ecumenical Affairs, admitted in the June 27, issue of The Detroit News: "They (the six Protestant ministers) are not simply there as observers, but as consultants as well, and they participate fully in the discussions on Catholic liturgical renewal. It wouldn’t mean much if they just listened, but they contributed."
[xx] Note well that “Things which have been written or published by heretics, the Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church in nowise receives” – Pope St. Gelasius I (Dz 165).
[xxi] Le Monde, 22 November, 1969.
[xxii] Guitton (19/12/93) Apropos (17) p. 8f [Christian Order Oct 1994]. Jean Guitton was an intimate friend of Pope Paul VI.
[xxiii] The Catholic bishops in their vindication of Apostolicae Curae of Pope Leo XIII (on the Invalidity of Anglican Orders) wrote: "That in earlier times local Churches were permitted to add new prayers and ceremonies is acknowledged . . . But that they were also permitted to subtract prayers and ceremonies in previous use, and even to remodel the existing rites in a most drastic manner, is a proposition for which we know of no historical foundation, and which appears to us as absolutely incredible" - A Vindication of the Bull Apostolicae Curae (London, 1898), pp.42-43.
[xxiv] " If anyone says that the Mass should be celebrated in the vernacular only, let him be Anathema . " - Council of Trent (Session XXII, Canon 9). Again Pope Pius VI, condemned the notion that the mass should said “in the vernacular” as “rash, offensive to pious ears, insulting to the Church, and favorable to the charges of heretics against it” (Dz 1533).
[xxv] “If anyone says that the rite of the Roman Church, according to which a part of the canon and the words of consecration are pronounced in a low tone, is to be condemned, let him be anathema.” Council of Trent (Session XXII, Canon 9). Again Pope Pius VI, condemned the notion that the entire mass should “be uttered in a loud voice” as “rash, offensive to pious ears, insulting to the Church, and favorable to the charges of heretics against it” (Dz 1533).
[xxvi] "If anyone says that all Christians [lay people] have the power to administer the word [read at Mass] and all the sacraments [give out communion], let him be anathema." - Council of Trent, Canon 10, Session VII, March 3, 1547.
Regarding the manner of receiving communion the same Council explicitly states that "It was always the custom in the Church of God that laymen should receive the communion from the priest; but that the priest when celebrating (Mass) should communicate themselves; which custom as coming down from an Apostolic tradition, ought with justice and reason to be retained. - Trent Session, XIII, Chapter VIII.
[xxvii]
Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Mediator Dei (1947), as he described
this tendency (returning to primitive practices) as " a wicked movement
that tends to paralyze the sanctifying and salutary action by which the
liturgy leads the children of adoption on the path to their heavenly
Father." He further explained that " . . .the desire to restore
everything indiscriminately to its ancient condition is neither wise
nor praiseworthy. It would be wrong, for example, to want the altar
restored to its ancient from a table." The 16th century Protestant
reformer, Thomas Cranmer to justify the destruction of the Catholic
Altars wrote: "The use of an altar is to make sacrifice upon; the use
of a table to serve men to eat upon." - The Works of Thomas Cranmer
(London: Parker Society), V. 2, p. 524. Moreover in speaking on this
point concerning Protestant churches St. Robert Bellarmine had well
stated "When we enter ornate and clean Basilicas,
adorned with crosses, sacred images, altars, and burning lamps, we
most easily conceive devotion. But, on the other hand, when we enter
the temples of the heretics, where there is nothing except a chair
for preaching and a wooden table for making a meal, we feel
ourselves to be entering a profane hall and not the house of God.”-
[xxviii] St Tomas Aquanis (1225-1274) states that "The body of Christ Must not be touched by anyone, other than a Consecrated Priest. No other person has the right to touch it, except in case of extreme necessity." Summa Theo. Pt. III. Q.82. Art.3
[xxix] Canon 3.If anyone denies that Christ, the fountain and author of all graces, is received whole and entire under the one species of bread, because, as some falsely assert, He is not received in accordance with the institution of Christ under both species, let him be anathema.
[xxx] In this subtle manner the Sacrificial nature of the Mass is implicitly denied by the many deletions, and ambiguous substitutions. On this point the council of Trent explicitly states: "If anyone says that in the Mass a true and real sacrifice is not offered to God, or that the act of offering is nothing else than Christ being given to us to eat: Let him be anathema." - Council of Trent (Session XII, Canon 1)
[xxxi] On Pentecost Sunday, by law, the Traditional Latin Mass was abolished in England with almost no opposition from the bishops. For the faithful in Cornwall and Devon it was totally unacceptable. They took up arms. One of the requests made by these faithful Catholics, who were willing to die for their faith, was: “will have the Mass in Latin as was before, and celebrated by the Priest without man or woman communicating with him.”
[xxxii] In the Murky Waters of Vatican II, Tan Books, By Atila Sinke Guimaraes. These are in no way an isolated result as numerous independent studies have only confirmed the same. In his December 11th 2002 column, Patrick Buchanan wrote about the decline of Catholicism in the Church since Vatican II, based on statistics collected by Kenneth C. Jones of St. Louis. Among the findings: dramatic decreases in Mass attendance, an incredible loss of faith in the Real Presence, gigantic drops in the number of seminarians, priests, and religious, and a sky-rocketing increase in marriage annulments.
[xxxiii] The Catholic Weekly, May 11, 1997
[xxxiv] The Ottaviani intervention
[xxxv] The Ottaviani intervention
[xxxvi] Father Heribert Jone, an eminent Catholic moral theologian, in his famous Handbook of Moral Theology, discussed the sin of "False Worship," which is one of the offenses against the First Commandment. He said that "God is worshipped in a false manner if one mingles religious errors and deception with the worship of the true God" (Newman Press: Westminster MD, 1961, p. 97).
[xxxvii] The Catechism of the Council of Trent tells us that “a Catholic sins against the faith by parting in non-Catholic worship” – The New Mass is not Catholic worship, even if it has retained the name “Catholic” as the Anglican did up until much recently.
[xxxviii] The New Mass is hardly a Catholic Mass and so it cannot oblige nor suffice for one’s Sunday obligation. We must treat the question of attending it as we would any non-Catholic liturgy (with the important exception that the NOM has not been authoritatively declared non-Catholic which means that many who do attend it are unaware of its toxicity and are exempt from guilt): a Catholic may not attend it except with a mere physical presence, without positively taking part in it, and only because of major family reasons (weddings, funerals).
[xxxix] Dialogus contra Luciferianos 19:ML 23,181.
[xl] Apocalypse 3:16
[xli] "The salvation of souls must always be the supreme law of the Church" - canon 1752, All other purely ecclesiastical laws are subordinate to this law.
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