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| Photo by Fr. Lawrence Lew OP (source) |
Not long ago, a priest wrote to me with some questions prompted by recent events:
Does Saint Thomas teach that the intention of the priest pertains only to the words of institution, as meaning that Jesus becomes substantially present, or does intending what the Church intends encompass more than just the moment of consecration?There are a lot of separate issues here to disentangle.
Does the SSPX hold, or at least do some within the SSPX hold, that the Novus Ordo is unacceptable because they fear that priests are not intending what the Church intends, by, e.g., understanding the Eucharist to be merely a meal?
But clearly Saint Thomas asserts that lack of personal holiness, and even heretical views, do not prevent a priest, in the context of the liturgy, from intending what the Church intends during the rite of the Mass.
This question seems clear to me, yet there remains some fog surrounding whether the Novus Ordo so undermines what the Church intended for the Mass that I can call its validity into question.
Yet again, I intend what the Church intends: that the Mass is a sacrifice and not merely a meal, and that Jesus is made present on the altar as on Calvary in an unbloody manner. It seems challenging for me to say that I do not intend what the Church intends while celebrating the Novus Ordo through its liturgical prescriptions, such as the change in direction in which I stand (though I have come to understand that the new Mass is still meant to be celebrated facing away from the people).
I am cautious to ask: Is the issue with the Novus Ordo not so much one of validity and intention, but rather of liceity? Liceity seems to belong to following the GIRM, but could the instructions themselves present issues of liceity if the very instructions depart from the meaning of the Mass?
These are important questions, but they involve somewhat dangerous waters. They are also relevant in understanding the positions of the SSPX.
A notorious example of poor understanding is found in Fr. Anthony Cekada, who argued that the Novus Ordo simply “narrates” the institution of the Eucharist, and therefore does not intend the words as consecratory. This, of course, is pure foolishness. The words of institution effect what they signify whenever they are spoken by a priest who intends “to do what the Church does,” which is to confect the Eucharist – however the priest may personally understand that.
St Thomas is very insistent that a priest may have a personally incorrect idea of the sacrament, indeed he may be an atheist, but inasmuch as he is an “animated instrument” of Christ the High Priest, he need merely lend his hands and words to the act of the Church for the rite to be efficacious. This was already hammered out by St. Augustine against the Donatists, who argued that the holiness of the minister was essential; to which St. Augustine replied that it is Christ who accomplishes the sacrament, using the minister as a minister, that is, as an instrument.
For an intention to be invalidating, the instrument must will to not be an instrument, to not serve as the voice and hands of the Church. It is usually assumed that if he recites the words of the rite as printed and follows the usual gestures, he is lending himself to serve in such a way. His invisible thoughts and desires are not relevant in that regard. More relevant would be if he departs so far from the text that he is no longer doing what the Church prescribes, and thus indicating that he has no intention to lend himself as a minister of Christ to doing what Christ’s Church does. I don’t wish to cause readers needless pain, but here is an example shared on my YouTube channel of a priest whose liturgy is certainly invalid.
Since it is the common teaching of theologians that the words of institution are the immediately efficacious sign, the minimum required for validity is that these words be spoken correctly, over the correct matter, with the intention as described above. Obviously messing with the rest of the liturgy would be unfitting, illicit, scandalous, sacrilegious, etc., but it would not invalidate it. The same could be argued with regard to all the sacraments, each of which has its essential “formula” plus all the additional things done around it.There can be no question, judging from official documents released after the Council and the liturgical reform, that the Mass is still taught consistently to be a true and proper sacrifice, with the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist at its core. Thus, in spite of my very forceful critique of the Novus Ordo qua liturgy, I have never found any argument for its invalidity to be even remotely plausible.
As for illicitness, that’s a more involved question. Technically, anything that follows the rubrics issued by the competent authorities is licit (hence, you mention the GIRM that governs the Novus Ordo); but one may also ask larger questions about how far continuity with tradition can be ruptured without introducing a kind of illegality. This is a topic to which Fr. Claude Barthe has made some important contributions in his recently published book The Seven Sacraments, Past and Present: A Short Critical Study of the New Rituals.
In my lecture “The Four Qualities of Liturgy: Validity, Licitness, Fittingness, and Authenticity,” the transcript of which was published here in 2020, I define and distinguish between legality/licitness and legitimacy/authenticity, bringing clarity to a topic that is too often left opaque. I go further into the possibility of the new rite’s being illicit in two articles at my Substack: “The Reign of Novelty and the Sins of the Times: Why the Novus Ordo Is Solely Modern in Content (Part 4 – Conclusion)” and “Clarifications on the Reign of Novelty: A Letter Exchange with a Friendly Critic.”
In short: the arguments that sedevacantists are wont to make for the invalidity of any of the new sacramental rites are sunk by the classical Thomistic theology of the minimum required for validity, as well as by the consistent teaching of the Magisterium about what the sacraments are and what they effect, demonstrating that, however disastrous pastorally and spiritually the reforms have been, the underlying theology has not mutated past recognizable continuity.
I would only add that in my experiences traveling around the United States and beyond, all the young clergy I have met are reading books like Ludwig Ott and the Catechism of Trent. Their theology is traditionalist, even if the rites they use are not (yet) in full harmony with the tradition. In fact, recently I was looking at a brochure for a Newman Center at an American university, and I had to smile when I saw a large photo of a priest celebrating a Novus Ordo Mass. He was raising aloft a chalice – and observing canonical digits. Now there’s a man who hasn’t the slightest doubt that he is handling the Body of Christ.
Further reading:
