Helt på slutten av kapittel 10 (Send in the Clowns) i sin bok «Pope Paul’s New Mass» skriver Michael Davies om hvordan daværende og nåværende pave reagerte på datidens misbruk:
The 6 December 1979 issue of The Wanderer reported that no less a person than Cardinal Ratzinger of Munich had expressed similar sentiments in a sermon delivered to the German Bishops’ Conference in the autumn of that year. He referred to the many kinds of autocratic arbitrariness «which dragged the dignity of Our Lord’s institution down to the embarrassing level of the home-made.» The promotion of active participation of the faithful had given rise to the widely held opinion that «the liturgy must be made by the community’s work.» This, he admitted, had led to a situation in which the liturgy’s «success is ultimately gauged by its entertainment value.»
In his letter Dominicae Cenae, dated 24 February 1980 and addressed to the Bishops of the World, Pope John Paul II offered an apology in his own name and theirs to the faithful who had been outraged by the type of abuse documented in this chapter. Such an apology by the Supreme Pontiff to the faithful must be unprecedented in the entire history of the Church. It reads:
I would like to ask forgiveness-in my own name and in the name of all of you, venerable and dear brothers in the episcopatc, for everything which, for whatever reason, through whatever human weakness, impatience or negligence, and also through the at times partial, one-sided and erroneous applications of the directives of the Second Vatican Council, may have caused scandal and disturbance concerning the interpretation of the doctrine and the veneration due to this great sacrament. And I pray the Lord Jesus that in the future we may avoid in our manner of dealing with this Sacred Mystery anything which could weaken or disorient in any way the sense of reverence and love that exists in our faithful people.