Finally, some coverage of the reality that the liturgical changes of V2 did not suddenly appear out of thin air in the 1960s, though it probably felt that way for many. The educational materials mentioned here also help explain how we had highly involved members of the laity who were ready to smash altars and whitewash the sanctuaries…all the “best” sources had been priming them for it over many years. The Liturgical Movement could also stand with another wave of critical (as opposed to hagiographical) scholarship while avoiding rad-trad excess. The roots of the good, the bad, and the ugly of post-conciliar liturgy go deeper than most people realize.
I’m reading the firsthand memoir “A Wider View of Vatican II” by Archimandrite Boniface Luykx. Quite an eye-opener regarding the pre-council Liturgical Movement decades, the actual council intent, and post-council decades of chaos. Sobering.
Another interesting read is “Virgil Michel and the Liturgical Movement” by Fr. Paul Marx OSB written in the 1950s. Michel was the one who made St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville a hub for liturgical study and innovation that was influential at Vatican II and the years after, but he died prematurely in 1938. Marx’s book is interesting because it shows how the liturgical reformers viewed their work in the years before the Council and also details the problems and abuses that existed in the Tridentine liturgy before the Council. However, it can read a bit like hagiography at times.
Never mind detective work. Fr Thomas should be famous, among much else, for creating the first purpose built Vatican II "church in the round"on earth in 1934.
The Church of the First Martyrs stands in a very ordinary suburban road in Bradford, Yorkshire. It does not attract the hordes of visitors it deserves.
Pelvic matters still rumbled underground even back in the 1930s. Father Thomas was a big fan and ardent defender of the famous English sculptor, Eric Gill. Among many other sacred works, Gill carved the Stations of the Cross for Westminster Cathedral. And he designed the cover of the first issue of Orate Fratres for the St John Benedictines in 1926.
Father Thomas had to be very understanding about Eric's more, er, erotic works.
Fortunately Fr Thomas did not live to see either Vatican II or the unholy row once Eric's bedroom habits were unveiled in 1989.
In 2025 I got to see Eric Gill's only church, built in 1939. St Peter's, in Gorleston on the east coast of England, is a unique and fascinating Vat2 Church, built 20 years before the Council was even announced.
This will be a rather lengthy comment, my apologies in advance. It is difficult to clearly and succinctly summarize the history, which is one of the reasons that this explanation (and other material) was not included in the original article.
Here is my attempt to answer your question and provide more context:
The Roman basilicas referred to in the article are the major basilicas in the city of Rome - St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, St. Paul Outside the Walls, and St. Peter's.
The earliest and most prominent buildings which became churches in Rome (like St. Peters and the Lateran) had been constructed - before they were churches - with their facades facing the east, and their apse at the west end. This orientation was obviously maintained when they were converted to churches.
It was also the primitive, universal, and strictly followed practice of early Christians to face towards the geographic east while praying and while celebrating the liturgy.
Because of this, in churches which had their facades facing the east (like the early basilicas in Rome), the priest had to stand "behind" the altar and look across it and through the nave in order to face the geographic east.
He was not facing towards the people for the people's sake, and this orientation did not contain the didactic or pastoral meaning that was later claimed by members of the Liturgical Movement.
The laity in these churches *also* turned to look toward the geographic east during the eucharistic prayer, following the ancient practice. What this meant in practice in these ancient Roman churches was that while the priest and congregation were united in facing the east together during the prayers, the laity had their back to the priest and the altar.
In the words of Joseph Jungmann: "This [unique orientation of the oldest Roman churches] has the disadvantage that the congregation, wishing to look east during the prayers, had to turn together with the priest towards the door of the church. For the priest this meant no inconvenience, for he faced east and at the same time looked towards the people; but for the people it was less convenient, because they were obliged to turn away from the priest and from the altar."
The general dissatisfaction of the laity in needing to turn their back to the altar and priest in order to pray towards the east ultimately resulted in a distinct shift in the orientation of newly-built church buildings. They began to be purposely built so that their altars would be on the east end and the doors on the west. This trend in construction/orientation began as early as the 300s and eventually became nearly universal.
After this change, "the priest is standing at the altar . . . as the leader of his people; the people look up to him and the altar at the same time, and together they face towards the east. Now the whole congregation is like a huge procession, being led by the priest and moving east towards the sun, towards Christ the Lord."
Because of all this, the basilicas of the city of Rome were fairly unique with their ancient and 'outlier' physical orientation which resulted in the custom of both priest and people facing the doors in order to face east. Eventually, over the centuries, the people who worshipped in the Roman basilicas stopped turning their backs to the altar. This left the priest - due to the vagaries of local history - facing the people across the altar while they faced him.
Because the Roman basilicas were some of the most ancient surviving churches in the world, and because they were viewed as sites of particular significance, devotion, and inspiration throughout the Western church, there were some who sought to replicate their orientation with respect to altar placement and where the priest stood.
This is what the piece is referring to when it mentions people using the examples and customs of the Roman basilicas as inspiration or reference.
Is there evidence of the people turning away from the altar in these circumstances? It does not seem to match what St Charles Borromeo understood when he wrote this :- " Porro ad occidentem versus illa extruenda erit, ubi pro ritu ecclesiae a sacerdote, versa ad populum facie, Missae sacrum in altari maiori fieri solet."
CARLO BORROMEO
INSTRUCTIONES FABRICAE ET SUPELLECTILIS ECCLESIASTICAE
CAP. X. DE CAPPELLA MAIORI
Indeed he seems to think a recognised and ancient practice for the priest to 'face the people'
The debates over liturgy are worth having today, but without an understanding of the history provided here they will only generate heat, not light. Fassino has some a great service to us all with these articles.
As an aside, why the world look so beautiful before color photography? 😂
Genuinely fascinating historical recap. What stood out to me is that the long-standing variation in liturgical styles, in contrast for the demands for a single "unified" rite called for by those preferring the Novus Ordo.
I don't think those who have embraced the liturgical renewal have any such preference. It seems the reverse. With the renewal, there are a lot more options, while the precouncilar liturgy demanded strict uniformity.
The Vetus Ordo is the first implementation of a unified rite ever in the West. So much, that hundreds of local traditions vanished for ever. St Pius the Fifth missal is a model of simplification and standardization. In this regard, it opened the way to its heir, the novus ordo.
Debatable. St Pius V allowed alternative rites with a 200+ history to co-exist. One focus of the Council of Trent and Pius’ regularization of the Roman rite was to stop liturgicant free forming that had become popular with clerics suffering from Protestantism envy (sounds familiar). As the author points out in his treatise, variation in celebration still occurred despite celebrants working within the discipline of the “say the black, do the red” of the Tridentine mass. The core of the Pius V mass, which itself was based on organic development of centuries of liturgical forms that preceded it, lasted nearly 400 years. I am sure those attached to that form would be happy if the current pontiff applied the 200-year test.
The 200 year old test had to do exclusively with local, geographically based communities. The intent was for a particular local church to continue to use such a liturgy. None of them were universally allowed based on individual preferences. Even so, the post Trent mindset was so that these liturgies were further and further restricted so, for example, the Mozarabic rite was restricted to a single chapel in Spain.
Fascinating research into all this. Thank you for writing and sharing it. I do have one counter-point since you mentioned that Eugenio Pacelli (later Pius XII) celebrated Mass ad populum at Notre Dame in 1937. It seems to give a certain impression to the reader that Pacelli was supportive of ad populum Masses with a table altar even though ten years later he spoke against table altars in 1947 in Mediator Dei: “it is neither wise nor laudable to reduce everything to antiquity by every possible device. Thus, to cite some instances, one would be straying from the straight path were he to wish the altar restored to its primitive tableform...” Mediator Dei, 62.
Despite his comments in MD about primitive table forms, Pacelli was clearly supportive of versus populum Masses on freestanding altars -- particularly during the 1920s and 1930s.
As I say in the article:
"Eugenio Pacelli, during his tenure as Apostolic Nuncio to Germany, personally celebrated Mass versus populum on grand outdoor freestanding altars for massive crowds at the annual Catholic Congresses – known as ‘Katholikentag’ – throughout Germany: 1924 in Hannover, 1925 in Stuttgart, 1926 in Breslau (now Wrocław), 1927 in Dortmund, 1928 in Magdeburg, and 1929 in Freiburg."
I provided an archival photo of the freestanding versusum populum altar Pacelli used in 1929 in Freiburg in the piece, but you can also see other photos of Pacelli and these versus populum altars which I provided in links in the text:
I also have other archival photographs of Pacelli from the events in 1924 and 1927, and additional photos of the other years -- but I was not able to include them in this article due to scope limitations and re-use permissions.
Your sources and citations are excellent. Thank you for sharing them. However, I still think it is helpful for engendering trust with your readers to mention the quote from Mediator Dei as it presents a more complicated picture of Pius XII's perspectives on free-standing altars than can be gleaned from your article. Did Pacelli's position develop or change from before his papacy to when he became Pope? Is there any evidence that he supported free-standing altars while he was Pope despite his criticism of them in Mediator Dei? These are pertinent questions that I don't know the answers to.
Yes, there is evidence that Pacelli was open to the option of freestanding versus populum altars during his pontificate.
In his 1956 address to the First International Congress of Pastoral Liturgy in Assisi, the pope discussed importance and integral union of the tabernacle and the altar, emphasizing that they should never be separated: "To separate the tabernacle from the altar is to separate two entities which by their origin and their nature should remain united."
This would prima facie seem to suggest that versus populum masses would be impossible. Yet, Pius went on to explicitly discuss a liturgical trend which was coming into vogue and would remain so through 1964: designing versus populum altars which had specially-designed tabernacles built into them (sometimes at the front, sometimes set down on a lower half-step, etc), which permitted versus populum celebration even with the tabernacle on the altar.
Of these, the pope said: "Specialists will offer various opinions for solving the problem of placing the tabernacle on the altar so as not to impede the celebration of the Mass when the priest is facing the congregation; the essential point is to understand that it is the same Lord present on the altar and in the tabernacle."
This is one clear demonstration that versus populum itself was not necessarily considered an issue, and he certainly did not condemn or reprove it.
At the risk of displaying utter ignorance, I will say that although I enjoyed this series very much (and learned quite a bit that grapples with my (probably) incorrect dichotomy of pre and post Vatican II Liturgy) I wish there had been citations with footnotes to “follow the evidence”, not only to bolster the claims put forth here (to which I am giving the benefit of the doubt the author would not lead us astray), but to also allow us to dive deeper into some of these historical claims.
Overall, very well done. Thank you for your hard work. Please provide any further reading suggestions.
Unfortunately, unlike the material I publish on my own research website, the Pillar does not support footnotes as part of their house-style and approach to articles. All of the material discussed in this article was the result of several years of research and can certainly be cited or supported.
If you'd like, you can ask me questions here in the comments, or you are welcome to send me an email and I can provide you with specific citations or additional explanations:
I’m pleasantly surprised to hear directly from the author and so quickly! Thank you!
I would have to do a re-read to ask further, but I do appreciate you making yourself available for further questions. I currently have a tab open with your website and will scroll through those articles for further information.
I’m sure this was quite an exhaustive project and appreciate your commitment. I’m learning more and more that I have a lot more to learn about this historical debate.
Let me ask for now: if you could give a few recommendations for further reading that is as unbiased as possible, what would you recommend?
On which specific topics are you looking for recommendations for further reading? There are many different subject areas which I synthesized into this piece, each of which required different research and reference materials:
(1) the history of tridentine architectural development, (2) the history of Notre Dame's main altar in the 1600s and 1700s, (3) the history of ceremonial pomps at Notre Dame, (4) the history of versus populum at Notre Dame in from 1930 to the mid 1950s, (5) the story of the 1937 Paris expo, (6) the wider context of versus populum in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s
(6) Evelyn Carole Voelker, "Charles Borromeo's Instructiones fabricae et supellectilis ecclesiasticae, 1577 : a translation with commentary and analysis," https://archive.org/details/charlesborromeos00voel
As for your request for further reading on the history of versus populum at Notre Dame and the wider European practice of versus populum before the council, I don't have much to offer. There are no other studies on this of which I am aware.
My work in this article is the first time this has been systematically studied and synthesized. This required a substantial amount of original research, previously unpublished content, and uncited archival material. In the piece, I cite and link to some of the archives and sources I used or translated. But the purpose of these articles are to reconstruct this for the first time and make this information available.
These two articles show how liturgical changes don't take place in a vacuum, and how context affects legislation. My boyhood pastor literally wrote the book on what a 1950s Catholic Church should look like (The Church Edifice and its Appointments), and he built one. The raised altar with tabernacle under a baldacchino was the architectural focus of the building. But, very soon after the Council, he had a more modest altar placed in the sanctuary to allow for Mass versus populum. No one had directed him to do this, but the idea was very much "in the air", and your articles illustrate why. Something very similar happened after the Council of Trent, as your first article noted. When we admire the magnificent churches of Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce in Florence, we see historic buildings that were drastically "renovated" after Trent to allow the faithful to see the main altar. Again, there was no directive from on high -- it just seemed to be (if I may) "the spirit of the Council".
I would suggest that there is an inherent tension between the vertical and the horizontal in our worship. As the Second Vatican Council taught, the purpose of the liturgy is twofold: the worship of God and the sanctification of the people. Perhaps we can turn the heat down in the liturgical wars if we can acknowledge that both are needed, that different forms of celebration tend to emphasize one or the other, and there are strengths and weaknesses in every form. We need to get away from the position somewhat wryly expressed by: "You worship God in your way, and I'll worship Him in His."
On the Pacelli question: I would assume that as he was taking part in these liturgies in a diplomatic role, his stance would be that this was the desire of the bishops of the country and, as it was in fact no violation of liturgical laws, he should have the manners of a good guest.
The goal of St Pius V's liturgical reform was not to make space for specific personal attachments, but to implement the doctrine and "spirit of the Council" of Trent at the largest scale possible, making sure however that local churches' rights were still taken into consideration to a certain point. The pope in this matter set up his own limitations, for the sake of good order. But the 200 year rule was not a test, it was a wise use of authority.
Finally, some coverage of the reality that the liturgical changes of V2 did not suddenly appear out of thin air in the 1960s, though it probably felt that way for many. The educational materials mentioned here also help explain how we had highly involved members of the laity who were ready to smash altars and whitewash the sanctuaries…all the “best” sources had been priming them for it over many years. The Liturgical Movement could also stand with another wave of critical (as opposed to hagiographical) scholarship while avoiding rad-trad excess. The roots of the good, the bad, and the ugly of post-conciliar liturgy go deeper than most people realize.
I’m reading the firsthand memoir “A Wider View of Vatican II” by Archimandrite Boniface Luykx. Quite an eye-opener regarding the pre-council Liturgical Movement decades, the actual council intent, and post-council decades of chaos. Sobering.
Ooooh, thank you for this comment! Sounds fascinating.
Another interesting read is “Virgil Michel and the Liturgical Movement” by Fr. Paul Marx OSB written in the 1950s. Michel was the one who made St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville a hub for liturgical study and innovation that was influential at Vatican II and the years after, but he died prematurely in 1938. Marx’s book is interesting because it shows how the liturgical reformers viewed their work in the years before the Council and also details the problems and abuses that existed in the Tridentine liturgy before the Council. However, it can read a bit like hagiography at times.
What certainly DID appear out of thin air post-VCII was the “variety show host celebrant”!
And how I wish they could vanish back into thin air…
Thanks for an enthralling article which covers a huge amount of ground.
GK Chesterton's Father Brown was obviously fictional. But he was allegedly based on the real life Fr Thomas J O'Connor, a great friend of GK.
https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/2023380/Father-Brown-real-life-priest-series
Never mind detective work. Fr Thomas should be famous, among much else, for creating the first purpose built Vatican II "church in the round"on earth in 1934.
https://scfm.org.uk/about-the-parish/history-of-the-parish/
The Church of the First Martyrs stands in a very ordinary suburban road in Bradford, Yorkshire. It does not attract the hordes of visitors it deserves.
Pelvic matters still rumbled underground even back in the 1930s. Father Thomas was a big fan and ardent defender of the famous English sculptor, Eric Gill. Among many other sacred works, Gill carved the Stations of the Cross for Westminster Cathedral. And he designed the cover of the first issue of Orate Fratres for the St John Benedictines in 1926.
Father Thomas had to be very understanding about Eric's more, er, erotic works.
Fortunately Fr Thomas did not live to see either Vatican II or the unholy row once Eric's bedroom habits were unveiled in 1989.
In 2025 I got to see Eric Gill's only church, built in 1939. St Peter's, in Gorleston on the east coast of England, is a unique and fascinating Vat2 Church, built 20 years before the Council was even announced.
http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/gorleston/gorlestonpeter.htm
So we can only pray that his sins are forgiven.
This two-part series was fascinating -- a great read over my morning coffee.
You keep stating that these changes were made in line with the major Roman basilicas. Could the Pillar please tell us more about these churches?
This will be a rather lengthy comment, my apologies in advance. It is difficult to clearly and succinctly summarize the history, which is one of the reasons that this explanation (and other material) was not included in the original article.
Here is my attempt to answer your question and provide more context:
The Roman basilicas referred to in the article are the major basilicas in the city of Rome - St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, St. Paul Outside the Walls, and St. Peter's.
The earliest and most prominent buildings which became churches in Rome (like St. Peters and the Lateran) had been constructed - before they were churches - with their facades facing the east, and their apse at the west end. This orientation was obviously maintained when they were converted to churches.
It was also the primitive, universal, and strictly followed practice of early Christians to face towards the geographic east while praying and while celebrating the liturgy.
Because of this, in churches which had their facades facing the east (like the early basilicas in Rome), the priest had to stand "behind" the altar and look across it and through the nave in order to face the geographic east.
He was not facing towards the people for the people's sake, and this orientation did not contain the didactic or pastoral meaning that was later claimed by members of the Liturgical Movement.
The laity in these churches *also* turned to look toward the geographic east during the eucharistic prayer, following the ancient practice. What this meant in practice in these ancient Roman churches was that while the priest and congregation were united in facing the east together during the prayers, the laity had their back to the priest and the altar.
In the words of Joseph Jungmann: "This [unique orientation of the oldest Roman churches] has the disadvantage that the congregation, wishing to look east during the prayers, had to turn together with the priest towards the door of the church. For the priest this meant no inconvenience, for he faced east and at the same time looked towards the people; but for the people it was less convenient, because they were obliged to turn away from the priest and from the altar."
The general dissatisfaction of the laity in needing to turn their back to the altar and priest in order to pray towards the east ultimately resulted in a distinct shift in the orientation of newly-built church buildings. They began to be purposely built so that their altars would be on the east end and the doors on the west. This trend in construction/orientation began as early as the 300s and eventually became nearly universal.
After this change, "the priest is standing at the altar . . . as the leader of his people; the people look up to him and the altar at the same time, and together they face towards the east. Now the whole congregation is like a huge procession, being led by the priest and moving east towards the sun, towards Christ the Lord."
Because of all this, the basilicas of the city of Rome were fairly unique with their ancient and 'outlier' physical orientation which resulted in the custom of both priest and people facing the doors in order to face east. Eventually, over the centuries, the people who worshipped in the Roman basilicas stopped turning their backs to the altar. This left the priest - due to the vagaries of local history - facing the people across the altar while they faced him.
Because the Roman basilicas were some of the most ancient surviving churches in the world, and because they were viewed as sites of particular significance, devotion, and inspiration throughout the Western church, there were some who sought to replicate their orientation with respect to altar placement and where the priest stood.
This is what the piece is referring to when it mentions people using the examples and customs of the Roman basilicas as inspiration or reference.
Thank you.
Is there evidence of the people turning away from the altar in these circumstances? It does not seem to match what St Charles Borromeo understood when he wrote this :- " Porro ad occidentem versus illa extruenda erit, ubi pro ritu ecclesiae a sacerdote, versa ad populum facie, Missae sacrum in altari maiori fieri solet."
CARLO BORROMEO
INSTRUCTIONES FABRICAE ET SUPELLECTILIS ECCLESIASTICAE
CAP. X. DE CAPPELLA MAIORI
Indeed he seems to think a recognised and ancient practice for the priest to 'face the people'
The debates over liturgy are worth having today, but without an understanding of the history provided here they will only generate heat, not light. Fassino has some a great service to us all with these articles.
As an aside, why the world look so beautiful before color photography? 😂
Genuinely fascinating historical recap. What stood out to me is that the long-standing variation in liturgical styles, in contrast for the demands for a single "unified" rite called for by those preferring the Novus Ordo.
I don't think those who have embraced the liturgical renewal have any such preference. It seems the reverse. With the renewal, there are a lot more options, while the precouncilar liturgy demanded strict uniformity.
That conclusion is contradicted by the article. And the preference for uniformity to the NO is the recent stated views of Cardinals Roche and Cupich.
Neither of those august prelates have said anything against the wide variety of options the Roman Missal now allows.
The Vetus Ordo is the first implementation of a unified rite ever in the West. So much, that hundreds of local traditions vanished for ever. St Pius the Fifth missal is a model of simplification and standardization. In this regard, it opened the way to its heir, the novus ordo.
Debatable. St Pius V allowed alternative rites with a 200+ history to co-exist. One focus of the Council of Trent and Pius’ regularization of the Roman rite was to stop liturgicant free forming that had become popular with clerics suffering from Protestantism envy (sounds familiar). As the author points out in his treatise, variation in celebration still occurred despite celebrants working within the discipline of the “say the black, do the red” of the Tridentine mass. The core of the Pius V mass, which itself was based on organic development of centuries of liturgical forms that preceded it, lasted nearly 400 years. I am sure those attached to that form would be happy if the current pontiff applied the 200-year test.
The 200 year old test had to do exclusively with local, geographically based communities. The intent was for a particular local church to continue to use such a liturgy. None of them were universally allowed based on individual preferences. Even so, the post Trent mindset was so that these liturgies were further and further restricted so, for example, the Mozarabic rite was restricted to a single chapel in Spain.
Fascinating research into all this. Thank you for writing and sharing it. I do have one counter-point since you mentioned that Eugenio Pacelli (later Pius XII) celebrated Mass ad populum at Notre Dame in 1937. It seems to give a certain impression to the reader that Pacelli was supportive of ad populum Masses with a table altar even though ten years later he spoke against table altars in 1947 in Mediator Dei: “it is neither wise nor laudable to reduce everything to antiquity by every possible device. Thus, to cite some instances, one would be straying from the straight path were he to wish the altar restored to its primitive tableform...” Mediator Dei, 62.
This is a very important citation. Thank you.
Thank you! I'm glad you liked the piece.
Despite his comments in MD about primitive table forms, Pacelli was clearly supportive of versus populum Masses on freestanding altars -- particularly during the 1920s and 1930s.
As I say in the article:
"Eugenio Pacelli, during his tenure as Apostolic Nuncio to Germany, personally celebrated Mass versus populum on grand outdoor freestanding altars for massive crowds at the annual Catholic Congresses – known as ‘Katholikentag’ – throughout Germany: 1924 in Hannover, 1925 in Stuttgart, 1926 in Breslau (now Wrocław), 1927 in Dortmund, 1928 in Magdeburg, and 1929 in Freiburg."
I provided an archival photo of the freestanding versusum populum altar Pacelli used in 1929 in Freiburg in the piece, but you can also see other photos of Pacelli and these versus populum altars which I provided in links in the text:
1925 - https://archiv0711.hypotheses.org/5995
1926 - https://www.granger.com/0223952-religion-germany-65th-katholikentag-catholic-day-in-breslau-image.html
1928 - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-06521,_Magdeburg,_Katholikentag,_Ehrenhof_der_Stadthalle.jpg
I also have other archival photographs of Pacelli from the events in 1924 and 1927, and additional photos of the other years -- but I was not able to include them in this article due to scope limitations and re-use permissions.
Your sources and citations are excellent. Thank you for sharing them. However, I still think it is helpful for engendering trust with your readers to mention the quote from Mediator Dei as it presents a more complicated picture of Pius XII's perspectives on free-standing altars than can be gleaned from your article. Did Pacelli's position develop or change from before his papacy to when he became Pope? Is there any evidence that he supported free-standing altars while he was Pope despite his criticism of them in Mediator Dei? These are pertinent questions that I don't know the answers to.
Yes, there is evidence that Pacelli was open to the option of freestanding versus populum altars during his pontificate.
In his 1956 address to the First International Congress of Pastoral Liturgy in Assisi, the pope discussed importance and integral union of the tabernacle and the altar, emphasizing that they should never be separated: "To separate the tabernacle from the altar is to separate two entities which by their origin and their nature should remain united."
This would prima facie seem to suggest that versus populum masses would be impossible. Yet, Pius went on to explicitly discuss a liturgical trend which was coming into vogue and would remain so through 1964: designing versus populum altars which had specially-designed tabernacles built into them (sometimes at the front, sometimes set down on a lower half-step, etc), which permitted versus populum celebration even with the tabernacle on the altar.
Of these, the pope said: "Specialists will offer various opinions for solving the problem of placing the tabernacle on the altar so as not to impede the celebration of the Mass when the priest is facing the congregation; the essential point is to understand that it is the same Lord present on the altar and in the tabernacle."
This is one clear demonstration that versus populum itself was not necessarily considered an issue, and he certainly did not condemn or reprove it.
This is very interesting. Thank you for sharing!
At the risk of displaying utter ignorance, I will say that although I enjoyed this series very much (and learned quite a bit that grapples with my (probably) incorrect dichotomy of pre and post Vatican II Liturgy) I wish there had been citations with footnotes to “follow the evidence”, not only to bolster the claims put forth here (to which I am giving the benefit of the doubt the author would not lead us astray), but to also allow us to dive deeper into some of these historical claims.
Overall, very well done. Thank you for your hard work. Please provide any further reading suggestions.
Unfortunately, unlike the material I publish on my own research website, the Pillar does not support footnotes as part of their house-style and approach to articles. All of the material discussed in this article was the result of several years of research and can certainly be cited or supported.
If you'd like, you can ask me questions here in the comments, or you are welcome to send me an email and I can provide you with specific citations or additional explanations:
feedback [at] handmissalhistory [dot] com
I’m pleasantly surprised to hear directly from the author and so quickly! Thank you!
I would have to do a re-read to ask further, but I do appreciate you making yourself available for further questions. I currently have a tab open with your website and will scroll through those articles for further information.
I’m sure this was quite an exhaustive project and appreciate your commitment. I’m learning more and more that I have a lot more to learn about this historical debate.
Let me ask for now: if you could give a few recommendations for further reading that is as unbiased as possible, what would you recommend?
On which specific topics are you looking for recommendations for further reading? There are many different subject areas which I synthesized into this piece, each of which required different research and reference materials:
(1) the history of tridentine architectural development, (2) the history of Notre Dame's main altar in the 1600s and 1700s, (3) the history of ceremonial pomps at Notre Dame, (4) the history of versus populum at Notre Dame in from 1930 to the mid 1950s, (5) the story of the 1937 Paris expo, (6) the wider context of versus populum in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s
I think 1 and 4, with 4 being able to show where versus populum was also practiced prior to the council and its reasoning for why
I'm sorry for the delay, here is my response.
For further reading on the history of tridentine architectural development in English (there are other sources in French and Italian, etc):
(1) Marcia Hall, "Renovation and Counter-Reformation: Vasari and Duke Cosimo in Sta Maria Novella and Sta Croce, 1565-1577," https://archive.org/details/renovationcounte0000hall
(2) Faith Charlotte Trend, "Church design in counter reformative Venice," https://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/8329/2/Trend18PhD_Vol_1.pdf
(3) Marcia Hall, "Another Look at the Rood Screen in the Italian Renaissance," https://www.sacredarchitecture.org/articles/another_look_at_the_rood_screen_in_the_italian_renaissance
(4) Matthew Gallegos, "Charles Borromeo and Catholic Tradition," https://www.sacredarchitecture.org/articles/charles_borromeo_and_catholic_tradition
(5) Daniel DeGreve, "Clergy Seating through the Centuries, Part II — The Enclosed Choir in the Medieval Cathedrals and Abbeys," https://adoremus.org/2014/08/clergy-seating-through-the-centuries/
(6) Evelyn Carole Voelker, "Charles Borromeo's Instructiones fabricae et supellectilis ecclesiasticae, 1577 : a translation with commentary and analysis," https://archive.org/details/charlesborromeos00voel
As for your request for further reading on the history of versus populum at Notre Dame and the wider European practice of versus populum before the council, I don't have much to offer. There are no other studies on this of which I am aware.
My work in this article is the first time this has been systematically studied and synthesized. This required a substantial amount of original research, previously unpublished content, and uncited archival material. In the piece, I cite and link to some of the archives and sources I used or translated. But the purpose of these articles are to reconstruct this for the first time and make this information available.
These two articles show how liturgical changes don't take place in a vacuum, and how context affects legislation. My boyhood pastor literally wrote the book on what a 1950s Catholic Church should look like (The Church Edifice and its Appointments), and he built one. The raised altar with tabernacle under a baldacchino was the architectural focus of the building. But, very soon after the Council, he had a more modest altar placed in the sanctuary to allow for Mass versus populum. No one had directed him to do this, but the idea was very much "in the air", and your articles illustrate why. Something very similar happened after the Council of Trent, as your first article noted. When we admire the magnificent churches of Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce in Florence, we see historic buildings that were drastically "renovated" after Trent to allow the faithful to see the main altar. Again, there was no directive from on high -- it just seemed to be (if I may) "the spirit of the Council".
I would suggest that there is an inherent tension between the vertical and the horizontal in our worship. As the Second Vatican Council taught, the purpose of the liturgy is twofold: the worship of God and the sanctification of the people. Perhaps we can turn the heat down in the liturgical wars if we can acknowledge that both are needed, that different forms of celebration tend to emphasize one or the other, and there are strengths and weaknesses in every form. We need to get away from the position somewhat wryly expressed by: "You worship God in your way, and I'll worship Him in His."
On the Pacelli question: I would assume that as he was taking part in these liturgies in a diplomatic role, his stance would be that this was the desire of the bishops of the country and, as it was in fact no violation of liturgical laws, he should have the manners of a good guest.
The goal of St Pius V's liturgical reform was not to make space for specific personal attachments, but to implement the doctrine and "spirit of the Council" of Trent at the largest scale possible, making sure however that local churches' rights were still taken into consideration to a certain point. The pope in this matter set up his own limitations, for the sake of good order. But the 200 year rule was not a test, it was a wise use of authority.