Fifty years ago, Paul VI implemented a new form of the Roman Missal, a departure from the tradition of centuries not just in forms and gestures, but also in the content of our prayers. Vatican II required that in the liturgical reform nothing should be changed that wasn’t truly for the good of the people and that changes had to flow organically from what went before (Sacrosanctum Concilium 23).
The traditional Missal has 1,183 orations. However, in the new book 760 of those prayers were obliterated. Of the survivors, half were edited. Only 17 per cent of prayers from the traditional Missal made it into the Novus Ordo unscathed. The edited prayers and new compositions systematically eliminated or avoided concepts such as guilt, sin, judgment and propitiation.
