The Council of Trent went for eighteen years, from 1545-1563. It was called as a rather late response to the Protestant Reformation and was concerned with two basic issues: to make a Catholic response to the views of the Reformers and to bring about the reform of the inadequacies of the church of the late Middle Ages.
Many of the more detailed efforts concerning the liturgy in general and the Mass in particular were handed over to the pope (Pius V) to be organised in the time following the Council. So, the reshaping of the Mass was one of the issues that were taken up later by various papal offices.
One of the most noticeable issues regarding the Mass was the considerable variety of ways in which the Mass had been celebrated in different parts of Europe. This situation had been inherited from the earlier period as was mentioned in last week’s article. The eventual decision was that any practice in the celebration of Mass, which did not have 200 years of history behind it, should be deleted from the celebration. This was an interesting position to take since it respected the traditions which had some antiquity behind them and put aside some of the more dubious practices which had crept into the liturgy more recently. The accepted practices continued down into the nineteenth century and some of them into the twentieth.
The rite of the Mass which was formulated at that time and was given the name of the pope who approved it, Pope Pius V. This was the rite that was celebrated throughout most of the Latin church up to Vatican II. It was the rite with which some of us grew up.
Despite some discussion on the matter, the liturgy remained in Latin and basically was a tidying up of the inherited rite used in Rome up to that point.
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Albert van Grieken says:
Just love reading these well informed articles
Anout the history and evolution of our church and practices. Thank you fr Frank for these wonderful brief summaries and insights