The introduction to this page, “Contra Novus Ordo Missae”, was written by Silvester Donald McLean for Pax Orbis. Mr. McLean was founder and editor of the traditionalist newspaper, “Catholic”, which ran from 1982 to 2000.
The Mass as we knew it, up until the 1950s, had not changed in any substantial way since the time of Pope Gregory the Great who died in the year 604. The great Catholic writer Michael Davies acquired an Altar Missal which had been hand-written in the 11th Century, 300 years before printing was invented. He gave this Missal to a priest-friend, who had no trouble using it to celebrate Holy Mass.
We Catholics should not have to qualify ‘Mass’ with any more than say ‘Low Mass’; ‘High Mass’ or ‘Pontifical High Mass’. And we knew that anywhere in the world, the Mass would be the same. The decade of the 1960s was one of change, culminating in the imposition of the Novus Ordo Missae, the New Order of the Mass, on the First Sunday of Advent, 1969.
Now, the form of worship in the Church is like the Tower of Babel. Not only is the language different, it is the language of the country, but also the form has diversified so much that it varies from country to country, even parish to parish.
Even the term ‘Tridentine Mass’ is a misnomer. It implies that the Mass was somehow altered by the Papal Bull of Pope Saint Pius V in 1570. That is simply not so. The sainted Pope merely imposed the Mass as it was celebrated in Rome on the whole Church. The Bull Quo Primum of Pope Saint Pius V. can be read by anyone on the internet site Papal Encyclicals.Com.
So why this introduction, Contra Novus Ordo Missae? Because Australia was blessed to have a small number of priests who rejected the imposition of the New Order of the Mass, or else they returned to the Old Mass when they could or when they retired.
We have placed the first of these articles, by Father James Opie, who was a Parish Priest in the Archdiocese of Melbourne. He hosted the first visit to Australia of the greatest Archbishop of the last century, Msgr Marcel Lefebvre, in 1973. The account of that visit was recorded by the traditional journal World Trends, was reprinted in Catholic and appears on this website. Without the work of this truly great Archbishop, the Mass as it had substantially been since the year 604, would surely have died. That is why we have placed the work of Fr Opie, written sometime in the 1970s, first. It is clear, concise and easily understood. Then the work of other heroic Australian and New Zealand priests will follow.
