Monsignor Klaus Gamber on

OUR LADY OF FATIMA

CATHOLIC CHURCH

Monsignor Klaus Gamber on

Your Right to the Traditional Liturgy

Monsignor Klaus Gamber an expert in liturgy who was instrumental in making many of the changes that brought in the New Mass and later had a change of heart had this to say in his book The Reforms of the Roman Liturgy Its Problems and Background:

"Since there is no document that specifically assigns to the Apostolic See the authority to change, let alone to abolish the traditional liturgical rite; and since, furthermore, it can be shown that not a single predecessor of Paul VI has ever introduced major changes to the Roman liturgy, the assertion that the Holy See has the authority to change the liturgical rite would appear to be debatable, to say the least." Reforms of the Roman Liturgy Its Problems and Background, Monsignor Klaus Gamber, Una Voce, p 39

In a footnote to this paragraph he adds a very surprising observation, one very applicable to the situation of Traditionalists throughout the world:

"The following point is worth pondering: As already discussed, according to canon law, a person’s affiliation with a particular liturgical rite is determined by that person’s rite of baptism. Given the reforms of Pope Paul VI created a de facto new rite, one could assert that those among the faithful who were baptized according to the traditional Roman rite have the right to continue following that rite; just as priests who were ordained according to the traditional Ordo have the right to exercise the very rite they were ordained to celebrate." Op. cit. p 39

In the preface to the French edition of Gamber’s book, Josef Cardinal Ratzinger, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith wrote the following:

"What happened at the Council was something else entirely: in the place of the liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living, process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it - as in a manufacturing process - with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product. Gamber with the vigilance of a true prophet and the courage of a true witness, opposed this falsification, and, thanks to his incredibly rich knowledge, indefatigably taught us about the fullness of a true liturgy." Ibid. (rear cover of the book)

These words are as much a vindication of Gamber’s views on our right to the traditional liturgy as they are a stern indictment of the new liturgical rites especially when you consider that Cardinal Ratzinger is the number 3 head of the Church after the Pope and the Cardinal Secretary of State !