Historical Accounts of First Concelebrated Mass of Vatican II

From The Second Vatican Council: An Unwritten Story by Roberto de Mattei, Loreto Publishers, 2010, pp. 341-2.

Chapter V

1964: THE THIRD SESSION

1. The opening of the third session

On September 14, 1964, Pope Paul VI, surrounded by twenty-four council fathers, opened the third session of the council with a concelebrated Mass. The ceremony, the first of its kind to take place in the council assembly, seemed like the liturgical expression of the new principle of collegiality.[1] “The solitude of the pope,” the correspondent of Le Monde commented, “has given way to a chorus of twenty-five prelates—including the bishop of Rome—celebrating the Mass together, with the same voice and the same gestures.”[2] The Mass was moreover completely in dialogue and, as Bishop Câmara pointed out, gave the impression of an “enormous distance from the opening Mass, which had been sung from beginning to end by the Choir of the Sistine Chapel.”[3] Shortly after the beginning of the third period, the delegates of the episcopal conferences asked to concelebrate in suitable chapels or churches, following the pope’s example, and from then on concelebrations began to multiply.[4]

[1] On June 26, 1964, Paul VI had authorized the first experiments in six Benedictine monasteries: San Anselmo, Montserrat, En-Calcat, Maredsous, Maria Laach, Collegeville and in the Dominican convent of Le Saulchoir. On Holy Thursday, April 15, 1965, concelebration was to become a normal rite of the Western Church. The teaching of the Church, reiterated until Pius XIl, is that in concelebration there is one Sacrifice of the Mass, and that it is not multiplied depending on the number of celebrants (cf. Pius XII, Allocution on November 2, 1954, in AAS 46 [1954): 669; Idem, Audience on September 22, 1956, on the occasion of the Second International Congress of pastoral liturgy, in AAS 48 [1956): 717). On the topic of concelebration see the excellent study by Joseph de Sainte-Marie, O,C.D., L'eucharistie, salut du monde: Etudes sur le Saint Sacrifice de la messe, sa célébration, sa concélébration (Paris, Editions du Cèdre, 1982), and the one by Monsignor R. M. Schmitz, "Zur Theologie der Konzelebration," in Theologisches 139 (1981): 4323-4334 (expanded as "La concelebrazione eucaristica," at http://www.haerentanimo.net, September 8, 2009).

[2] Fesquet, Drama, 298.

[3] Câmara, Lettres Conciliares, 2:505.

[4] Ibid., 694-695, J. A. Komonchak, “Toward an Ecclesiology of Communion,” in HVT 4:1-94.

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From Vatican Council II: An Authoritative One-Volume Version of the Four Historic Books by Xavier Rynne, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1968, pp. 291-2.

The Third Session opened on September 14, 1964, with Pope Paul being carried into St. Peter’s on his portable throne surrounded by the papal court as usual, but a happy Pauline touch was evident as soon as he reached the altar. There, dismounting from his throne, he immediately joined twenty-four waiting prelates, all vested in red, with whom he intended to concelebrate the mass, as if to anticipate, symbolically, the doctrine of episcopal collegiality, not yet proclaimed by the Council. The altar, which stands directly above the tomb or shrine of St. Peter beneath Bernini’s splendid canopy, had been enlarged to a rectangular shape, and was decorated with a severely simple white cloth and six low candles. Attended only by his two masters of ceremony, the 80-year-old Archbishop Dante, secretary of the Congregation of Rites, and Monsignor Capoferri, the pope began the prayers at the foot of the altar in a resolute but peculiarly clouded voice. The basilica choir rendered the introductory motet in the plainest Gregorian chant, in striking contrast to the usual pompous polyphony, while the full congregation recited the Gloria, the Credo, the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei in alternate verses. At the offertory, the orationes super populum, or special prayers for the people in litany form, were re-introduced after centuries of omission, and during the canon of the mass, all the concelebrating prelates said the prayers out loud including the words of consecration over the bread and wine Communion was received by the participating concelebrants, each of whom took a piece of one of three large hosts used for the occasion, and a spoonful of wine from the common chalice; then the sacrament was distributed to the people. While sharp liturgical eyes criticized some of the details as not in accord with the most advanced liturgical thinking, the impression on the assembled prelates and the laity was decisive. Only three members of the Curia—Cardinal Tisserant, the dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals; Cardinal Larraona, and Archbishop Felici, secretary general of the Council—were among the concelebrants, the rest being residential bishops, including Cardinal Lercaro (Bologna), Archbishops Krol (Philadelphia) and Shehan (Baltimore), and two heads of religious orders.

From Letters from Vatican City by Xavier Rynne, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1963, pp. 113-116,

The following Monday, however, in the 9th General Congregation on Oct. 29, 1962, the Presidential board decided to bring the current discussion to an end and pass on to chapter II of the schema, dealing with the mass.

In the first speech on the new matter. Cardinal Spellman agreed with the need for active participation of the laity in the mass, but came out strongly against giving them communion with both bread and wine, as recommended in the schema, in keeping with the words of Christ: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood . . ." (Jn. 6:53) and as had been the custom in the Roman Church down to at least the twelfth century. He was also against the concelebration of mass by a number of priests using one altar and going through the words and actions together. His priests, he remarked, frequently had to say three masses each on Sundays to accommodate all the people coming to church, and even on week days there were times when it was difficult to get a priest to take care of the ordinary parish masses, funerals and weddings. Hence he could see no need for such an innovation. He was on less solid ground in the judgment of competent theologians, however, when he attempted to argue that concelebration involved the Church in a loss of graces. On the cardinal's behalf, it is only fair to add that a certain theologian had told the American bishops that when 100 priests concelebrated, the Church was 99 masses short.

He was seconded by Cardinal Ruffini who cited hygienic reasons against giving wine to the faithful, and the inconveniences for priests and churches in the matter of concelebration. However he insisted it was the right of the Holy See alone to make concessions in such matters.

The last speech of the day fell like a bombshell on the assembly. It was made by Cardinal Leger of Montreal who came out four-square both for concelebration by groups of priests when possible, and for giving both bread and wine to the people in the eucharist. He said that, as was demonstrated in the Oriental rites where both these practices prevailed, it was a sign of true unity and mutual charity to have a number of priests around the same table imitating Christ and the Apostles at the Last Supper. As for the inconveniences, he could visualize none, other than the need for priests, in charity, to synchronize their prayers and actions at the altar. After all, the mass was not a private devotion of the priest; it was always a public function of the Church with the priest as minister and the people as participants. He cited likewise the daily practice of the Oriental rites in giving communion under both bread and wine; hence he could see no hygienic problem. Finally he asked that the original text of the whole liturgical schema as it left the Preparatory Commission be brought into the discussions.

On October 30, in the 10th General Congregation, with Cardinal Alfrink in the chair as President, the Cardinal of England, Godfrey, attempted in a general fashion to reply to the assertions of the Cardinal of Montreal. He was afraid that the return to the practice of giving communion with both bread and wine in a country such as his would lead people to think that the Catholic Church was giving in to the Anglicans and some of the other Protestant bodies who had retained this practice. But he was even more concerned for hygienic reasons, because women with lipstick regularly approached the altar for communion. Finally, he asked, what about reformed alcoholics and abstentionists and prohibitionists? As for concelebration of mass, he could conceive of its propriety on Holy Thursday, and in monasteries where a number of monks might say mass together on private altars and for certain other special gatherings of priests. But he felt generally that when offering a stipend for a mass people would prefer to have it said by one priest alone.

[ . . . ] Cardinal Bueno y Monreal of Seville discussed the question of the eucharistic fast, with particular reference to evening masses. Then Cardinal Alfrink rose to say that in the matter It was at this point that the famous speech of Cardinal Ottaviani occurred, after which he absented himself from the Council's public deliberations until Nov. 14. He rose to reply to Cardinal Alfrink in particular. What made the situation even more dramatic was that Cardinal Alfrink was the President of the day.

Seeing the way the wind had been blowing during the past few days, with determined expressions of opinion by such eminent figures as Cardinals Frings of Cologne, Doepfner of Munich, Doi of Tokyo, Leger of Montreal, Ritter of St. Louis and Meyer of Chicago, as well as the African bishops almost in a body, in favor of changes of all kinds, particularly regarding the use of the vernacular in the mass, the restoration of communion under both kinds on special occasions, and so on. Cardinal Ottaviani rose to ask, "Are these fathers planning a revolution?" He warned against scandalizing the faithful by introducing too many changes (an old Holy Office saw). He maintained that the proposal to have communion under both kinds had been turned down by a large majority in the Central Preparatory Commission, and it was only a small minority that was pressing for it now. He was against concelebration because it made the mass seem like something happening in a theater (an unintentional slap at the Oriental rites, where concelebration is normal). The liturgy should be regarded as sacred ground and approached with caution; had not God warned Moses to remove his sandals when approaching the burning bush? This last remark about Moses later caused an Austrian prelate to say that if the liturgy could be modernized merely by removing one's shoes, he would like to be the first to do so.

Unfortunately the cardinal ran on longer than his allotted ten minutes, refusing to be interrupted by the President, Cardinal Alfrink, who politely interposed: "Excuse me. Eminence, but you have already spoken more than fifteen minutes." The Secretary General, Archbishop Felici, thereupon conferred with Cardinal Alfrink, and Ottaviani was forced to stop; the microphone was then turned over to the next speaker. The Council fathers expressed their displeasure with the tenor of this speech by applauding Cardinal Alfrink's action. It was this unmistakable sign of the general feeling of the assembly, rather than the intervention of Alfrink, which seems to have caused Ottaviani to feel insulted and to remain away for almost two weeks.

When the applause had died down, Cardinal Bea noted that the mass was not only a "banquet" {convivium), but a "sacrifice" (sacrificium), and not merely a "sacrifice of praise," but a propitiatory sacrifice. He was in favor of having the sermon not only recommended but made obligatory at all masses, in order to stress the doctrinal import of the whole action and give greater meaning to the first part, or Liturgy of the Word, which the sermon brings to an end. Similarly the last part of the mass needed overhauling, with some kind of common prayer replacing the unsuitable Leonine prayers for the conversion of Russia, which usually follow the mass and are said in the vernacular. [*]

[*] The Holy See has recently (1960) permitted these prayers to be omitted under certain circumstances. Whether they are omitted or not has come to be regarded as something of a test of the conservativeness of parishes and of their receptiveness to the liturgical movement, in the U.S.A. at least.

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From the Rhine flows into the Tiber: A History of Vatican II by Fr. Ralph Wiltgen, S.V.D., TAN, 1985, pp. 25, 137, 240.

SACRED LITURGY

[ . . . ] Another concerned the matter of concelebration, that is, the simultaneous celebration of the same Mass by two or more priests. The present schema allowed concelebration in only two cases: the Mass for the blessing of the sacred chrism on Holy Thursday, and large gatherings of priests. In the light of these restrictions, Bishop Zauner asserted, “concelebration seems to be something exceptional, . . . although the practice is actually legitimate and greatly esteemed by the Oriental brethren of our own day, as it was in the Roman Church in the Middle Ages.”

ADOPTION OF THE SCHEMA ON THE LITURGY, AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION

[ . . . ] Bishop Zauner was disappointed with Article 57, which laid down the rules concerning concelebration. He explained that the numerous occasions for concelebration listed in an earlier draft, and which had been deleted by the subcommission on amendments during the preparatory stage of the Council, had not been restored. That was of little consequence, however, since “the opportunity for concelebration is practically extended to every group of priests.”

BLACK WEEK

[ . . . ] A solemn Mass of concelebration was offered by the Pope and twenty- four Council Fathers representing sees with national shrines in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Then the voting took place. The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, containing the much discussed chapter on collegiality, was adopted by 2151 votes to 5. The Decree on Eastern Catholic Churches was adopted by 2110 votes to 39. And the Decree on Ecumenism, with the last-minute changes referred to above, was adopted by 2I37 votes to 11. After the results of each ballot were announced, there was sustained applause. And after each document was promulgated by the Pope, there was again enthusiastic applause.