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"I reaffirm my personal opinion that the abrogation
of the Missal of St. Pius V is not proved and I can add that in the decree
signed by myself for the promulgation of the 3rd typical edition of the
Roman Missal, there is not any abrogation clause of the ancient form of
the Roman Rite. I say "of the ancient form" because there aren't
two "Roman Rites", but rather two "forms" of this
Rite, which has a substantial unity. And I can add that the absence of any
abrogation clause is not casual, nor result of an inadvertence, but
intentional"
Dear
Mr. Pastorelli,
I read with interest the Newsletter you publish,
(year III, n. 1, January - June 2004), with the title 'The Holy Mass is a
Real Sacrifice'. I have been very interested in the subject from the time
when I studied theology; in fact I chose as the theme of my doctoral
dissertation, 'The notion of Sacrifice in St Thomas Aquinas'.
Reading the afore-mentioned newsletter, I was
surprised not to find, among the plentiful quotations, numbers 47-49 of
the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council, and
numbers 1556-1572 and 1409-1410; 1414 and 1419 of the Catechism of the
Catholic Church, documents that are to be enumerated among the acts of the
Ordinary Magisterium of the Holy Father.
I reaffirm my personal opinion that the abrogation
of the Missal of St Pius V is not proven and I can add that the decree
that I signed promulgating the third typical edition of the Roman Missal
does not contain any clause that abrogates the ancient form of the Roman
Rite. I say "the ancient form" because there are not two 'Roman
Rites', but rather two 'forms' of this Rite, which has a substantial
unity. And I can also add that the absence of any abrogation clause
whatsoever did not happen by chance, nor was it caused by inadvertence,
but was intention.
In the study that I am commenting on, it would have
been useful to underline that the Eucharistic Sacrifice is relative to the
Sacrifice of the Cross, which is absolute and which can not be multiplied.
The words "to renew" could understand as "to do
again", or "to multiply", "to remake" - something
that would not be in accordance either with different texts of the Letter
to the Hebrews ("eph'apax"), or with the well-known text of the
Council of Trent. However, we try to express with our poor words and
concepts what is ineffable.
From what has been said before, the orthodoxy of
the Roman Missal promulgated by Pope Paul VI is not to be doubted.
In Jesus Our Lord,
Jorge A. Card Medina Estevez |
