Vi kan lese mer om Josef Jungmanns synspunkter i en annen artikkel om alterets plassering, av U. M. Lang, bl.a.:
The reform of the Roman Rite of Mass that was carried out after the Second Vatican Council has significantly altered the shape of Catholic worship. One of the most evident changes was the construction of freestanding altars. The versus populum celebration was adopted throughout the Latin Church, and, with few exceptions, it has become the prevailing practice during Mass for the celebrant to stand behind the altar facing the congregation. This uniformity has led to the widespread misunderstanding that the priest’s «turning his back on the people» is characteristic of the rite of Mass according to the Missal of Pope Saint Pius V whereas the priest’s «turning towards the people» belongs to the Novus Ordo Mass of Pope Paul VI. It is also widely assumed by the general public that the celebration of Mass «facing the people» is required, indeed even imposed, by the liturgical reform that was inaugurated by Vatican II.
However, the relevant conciliar and post-conciliar documents present quite a different picture. The Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, speaks neither of a celebration versus populum nor of the setting up of new altars. In view of this fact it is all the more astonishing how rapidly «versus populum altars» appeared in Catholic churches all over the world. …
(In a document from the Vatican) it is said to be desirable to set up the main altar separate from the back wall, so that the priest can walk around it easily and a celebration facing the people is possible. Josef Andreas Jungmann asks us to consider this: «It is only the possibility that is emphasized. And this [separation of the altar from the wall] is not even prescribed, but is only recommended, as one will see if one looks at the Latin text of the directive…. In the new instruction the general permission of such an altar layout is stressed only with regard to possible obstacles or local restrictions.»
In a letter addressed to the heads of bishops’ conferences, dated January 25, 1966, Cardinal Giacomo Lercaro, the president of the Consilium, states that regarding the renewal of altars «prudence must be our guide». He goes on to explain: «Above all because for a living and participated liturgy, it is not indispensable that the altar should be versus populum: in the Mass, the entire liturgy of the word is celebrated at the chair, ambo or lectern, and, therefore, facing the assembly; as to the eucharistic liturgy, loudspeaker systems make participation feasible enough. Secondly, hard thought should be given to the artistic and architectural question, this element in many places being protected by rigorous civil laws.»
With reference to Cardinal Lercaro’s exhortation to prudence, Jungmann warns us not to make the option granted by the instruction into «an absolute demand, and eventually a fashion, to which one succumbs without thinking». Inter Oecumenici permits the Mass facing the people, but it does not prescribe it. As Louis Bouyer emphasized in 1967, that document does not at all suggest that Mass facing the people is always the preferable form of Eucharistic celebration.
I kommisjonen Consilium, som snekret sammen den nye messeliturgien i årene før 1969, hadde altså både lederen, kardinal Lercaro, og to sentrale medlemmer, Jungmann og Bouyer (jeg leser bøker av begge disse to akkurat nå) sterke reservasjoner mot å snu alterne. I artikkelen til Lang kan vi også lese under overskrifta Early Critics of «facing the people»:
Already in the sixties, theologians of international renown criticized the sweeping triumph of the celebration versus populum. In addition to Jungmann and Bouyer, Joseph Ratzinger, then professor of theology at Tübingen and peritus at the Council, delivered a lecture at the Katholikentag of 1966 in Bamberg that was received with much attention. His observations have lost nothing of their relevance: «We can no longer deny that exaggerations and aberrations have crept in which are both annoying and unbecoming. Must every Mass, for instance, be celebrated facing the people? Is it so absolutely important to be able to look the priest in the face, or might it not be often very salutary to reflect that he also is a Christian and that he has every reason to turn to God with all his fellow-Christians of the congregation and to say together with them ‘Our Father’?»