En katolsk journalist i England, Moyra Doorly, har skrevet at par interessante artikler i The Catholic Herald om forandringene i messen, som ble innført for førti år siden. Først analyserer hun SSPX’s vurderinger av konsilet og noen viktige kirkelige dokumenter om messen (og ser ut til å være enig med dem i stor grad). Deretter stiller hun noen viktige spørsmål til dominikaneren Fr Aidan Nichols om sine bekymringer om katolske messer i vår tid.
Fr Nichols er i sitt svar bare delvis enig med henne, men skriver likevel:
… the scale of this reform, even had its components been entirely felicitous, was imprudently chosen, since of its nature liturgical life has to strike people as something that happens, not as something that is planned. In the Latin church, in countries like our own, the effects have been at times deeply disorienting, as is obvious to someone coming into the Church (like myself) in the 1960s, and is readily discovered by the inquiring minder of a convert of later date (such as yourself). One of the principal sufferers has been the sense of the Holy Eucharist as a sacrificial act, since the combined effect of textual, ritual and architectural changes (by the latter I have in mind the almost universal adoption of celebration facing the people) has been – unintentionally, of course – to weaken the sense that this sacrament is the renewed Calvary of the Church’s oblation. And this is especially so when these changes are underpinned (as, unfortunately, is often the case) by a catechetics which prefers to concentrate virtually unilaterally on the more easily assimilable theme of the Eucharistic banquet.
Debatten handler aller mest om på hvilken måte messen er et offer til soning for våre synder – ting som jeg flere ganger har tatt opp på denne blogen. Den handler også om om det var bestemmelser om messen fra tida etter konsilet som forandra messen så dramatisk, eller om det var selve tekstene (eller i alle fall tydelige tendenser) fra Vatikanum II som innførte den nye forståelsen.