The Consilium, officially the Consilium ad exsequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia (), was a special commission established by Pope Paul VI to carry out the liturgical reform called for by the Second Vatican Council. Created motu proprio by Sacram Liturgiam on 25 January 1964, the Consilium was charged with revising the liturgical books of the Roman Rite, and its work finished in the Novus Ordo Missae, the revised Order of Mass promulgated by the apostolic constitution Missale Romanum on 3 April 1969.
Operating semi-independent of the Sacred Congregation of Rites under the leadership of Father Annibale Bugnini, the Consilium drew on about 50 bishops and cardinals and more than 200 consultors organized into dozens of study groups called "coetus a studiis". It's proposals, particularly a 1967 trial rite known as the Missa Normativa, proved controversial among bishops and were the subject of criticism from traditionalist Catholics as shown most notably in the 1969 Ottaviani Intervention. The Consilium was later absorbed into the newly created Congregation for Divine Worship in 1969 and formally ceased to exist in April 1970.
Background On 4 December 1963, the Second Vatican Council promulgated the constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, which called for a reform of the liturgical books to more clearly express the nature of the liturgy and encourage the "full, conscious, and active participation" of lay faithful. But rather than assign this task to the existing Sacred Congregation of Rites, which had jurisdiction over the liturgy but was widely seen within reform circles as slow-moving, Paul VI chose to create a new, dedicated body to direct the implementation of Sacrosanctum Concilium.
What Sacrosanctum Concilium called for Sacrosanctum set out general principles rather than a specific new rite, and its provisions were narrower than the reform eventually produced. Paragraph (¶) 23 stated that innovations should not be introduced unless a genuine and certain benefit to the Church required them, and that any new forms should grow organically from those already existing. ¶ 34 directed that the rites be marked by "noble simplicity," be brief and clear, and omit repetitions that did not serve the understanding of the faithful, while ¶ 50 similarly called for the Ordo Missae to be revised so that the distinctive character of each part would be more evident and elements added over time with little benefit be dropped, "as, for instance, the two-fold reading of the Epistle and Gospel" at low Mass. On the language of the liturgy, ¶ 36 stated that the use of Latin was to be preserved in the Latin rites, while permitting a wider use of the vernacular, especially in the readings and some prayers, where a local episcopal conference judged it advantageous; ¶ 54 envisaged that the vernacular might be given "a suitable place" particularly in the readings and general intercessions, while expecting that the faithful would also be able to say or sing in Latin the parts of the Mass that pertained to them. The constitution did not itself mandate celebration facing the people, a fully vernacular Mass, the elimination of the Last Gospel, or the composition of new Eucharistic prayers, these accretions emerged during the Consilium's later work rather than being decreed in the Second Vatican Council
Mandate Paul VI established the commission by the apostolic letter motu proprio Sacram Liturgiam, dated 25 January 1964. As a body operating in parallel to the Congregation of Rites, the Consilium was given considerable autonomy over the reform, a status it retained until 8 May 1969, when the Congregation of Rites was suppressed and divided into the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Giacomo Lercaro, Archbishop of Bologna, was appointed the Consilium's first president, with Bugnini, a liturgical scholar who had long advocated reform of the Mass, serving as its secretary.
Membership At its fullest, the Consilium comprised 48 members; 11 Cardinals, 36 Bishops, and one Abbot. They were supported by more than 200 international consultors and advisors. This body was divided into over 40 specialized study groups, each assigned to a particular book or aspect of the liturgy, such as the Ordo Missae, the calendar, the lectionary, and the Divine Office. Some Consultors included liturgical scholars such as Josef Andreas Jungmann and Cipriano Vagaggini, alongside members having a range of theological views. The Frenchman Louis Bouyer served among the consultors and later published memoirs critical of aspects of the process. According to Bugni's own account, Paul VI took a little direct part in the day-to-day drafting, telling the Consilium only that the Church had entered a "historical moment" in its liturgical life and that members bore the responsibility for exercising careful judgment as the reform went forth.
Development of the reformed Mass
Initial revisions, 1964–1966 The Consilium's earliest work modified the existing Missale Romanum of 1962 bit by bit, producing instructions such as Inter Oecumenici (1964), which introduced limited use of the vernacular and simplified some rubrics, well before a wholly new Order of Mass was drafted. Over the next years the "coetus" responsible for the Mass, working principally under Bugniii's direction, moved toward a more thorough restructuring of the rite rather than a simple revision of the 1962 Missal.
The Missa Normativa and the 1967 Synod of Bishops By 1967 the Consilium had developed an experimental rite, referred to as the Missa Normativa ("normative Mass"), which was celebrated before consultors in the Sistine Chapel and subsequently presented to the first postconciliar Synod of Bishops, meeting in Rome that October alongside discussion of the reform of the code of canon law and the Divine Office. On 21 October 1967, Cardinal Lercaro presented the synod fathers with a report on the new structure, and on 24 October a trial celebration of the Missa Normativa was held for the assembled bishops. The response was mixed but most had reservations. in the vote that followed, of 187 bishops present, 43 voted non placet (against), 62 approved only iuxta modum (with reservations), and four abstained. Bugnini later acknowledged to Consilium members that the vote had gone, in his words, against what the body had hoped for. The setback contributed to a wider deterioration in Lercaro's standing; having already offered his resignation as archbishop of Bologna in 1966 on reaching the customary retirement age, Lercaro was informed by Paul VI in January 1968 that his resignation from the presidency of the Consilium had been accepted.
Finalization and the Ottaviani Intervention Work on the rite continued after the synod, with further revisions to the offertory, the eucharistic prayers, and the calendar; nine new prefaces were composed for the Missal during this period, of which eight were ultimately retained. Paul VI gave his approval to the revsed Ordo Missae in writing on 6 November 1968.
Before the new rite's promulgation, a critique compiled under the direction of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and endorsed by Cardnals Alfredo Ottaviani and Antonio Bacci was submitted to Paul VI; it became known as the Short Critical Study of the New Order of Mass, or the Ottaviani Intervention. The document argued that the revised Mass represented a significant departure from the theology of the Mass affirmed at the Council of Trent and objected that, in its view, the Missa Normativa had in substance already been rejected by the 1967 synod without subsequently being submitted to a fresh vote of episcopal conferences. Some Vaticanologists have noted that the intervention was among the factors that led Paul VI to postpone by two years the deadline he had initially set for mandatory use of the new Missal.
Elements removed or altered The Consilium's revisions proceeded in parts/stages, beginning with the interim missal of 1965 and continuing through further instructions before the definitive Ordo Missae of 1969. Among the changes and accretions made to the 1962 Missal were the following:
Prayers at the foot of the altar: the opening dialogue drawn from Psalm 42 (Iudica me, Deus) was dropped from the 1965 interim missal, and the whole set of prayers, and the recitation of the Confiteor at the beginning of Mass, was removed in the 1969 rite and replaced by a simplified penitential act. The Last Gospel and Leonine Prayers: the reading of the prologue of the Gospel of St. John (St. John 1:1–14) at the end of Mass, along wth the prayers after low Mass started by Pope Leo XIII, were suppressed in the 1965 interim missal on the grounds that the material duplicated readings now given greater prominence earlier in the liturgy. The double Confiteor: the 1962 Missal called for the Confiteor to be said twice, once by the priest and once by the servers or people, the reformed rite kept a single, shared recitation. Offertory prayers: the older offertory prayers, including Suscipe, sancte Pater and Deus, qui humanae substantiae, were replaced with new blessing formulas modeled on Jewish table blessings (berakoth), part of a broader recasting of the presentation of the bread and wine. Genuflections and signs of the cross: The number of genuflections by the celebrant and signs of the cross made over the offerings, especiallyduring the canon, were substantially reduced in the revised rite compared with the 1962 form. The Eucharistic Prayer: the Roman Canon, with minor changes, was retained as Eucharistic Prayer I, but the 1969 Missal introduced three newly composed alternatives (Eucharistic Prayers II, III, and IV) that priests could use in its placce, endingthe Roman rite's traditional practice of one single canon. Orientation: although the revised General Instruction permitted celebration facing the people (versus populum) and this became the near-universal parish practice after 1969, Sacrosanctum Concilium itself did not require it, and celebration facing the liturgical east was neither forbidden by the constitution nor by the Missal's rubrics.
Defenders of the reform have argued that these changees fall within the constitution' own call to simplify rites and eliminate "useless repetitions," and that the near-total adoption of the vernacular, while not itself commanded by the text, followed from decisions subsequently approved by episcopal conferences and the Holy See under the discretion paragraphs 36 and 40 left to competent authorities. Critics have replied that several of the changes-- particularly the wholesale removal of the Last Gospel and the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar, the multiplication of eucharistic prayers, and the near-disappearance of Latin from parish celebrations went beyond ¶ 23's requirement of organic growth from existing forms could support.
Promulgation, 1969 Paul VI published the new Order of Mass by the apostolic constitution Missale Romanum, signed on Holy Thursday, 3 Aril 1969. The accompanying Ordo Missae and its Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani (General Instruction of the Roman Missal) were published by decree of the Congregaion of Rites on 6 April 1969, and the new rite was set to take effect on the first Sunday of Advent, 30 November 1969. The new constitution and rite were formally announced in consistory on 28 April and presented to the press on 2 May 1969. A complete typical edition of the revised Missal, incorporating more textual corrections, was published the following year, on 11 My 1970.