Traditionalists should despise Pius XII

[Doom]

Almost everything Traditionalists and Sedevacantists hate about Vatican II has a precedent in actions taken by Pius XII.

The move towards the vernacular in the Mass originated with Pius X but rapidly accelerated under Pius XII.

The move to the vernacular began slowly with languages that used a different alphabet than the Latin alphabet; it started in Yugoslavia (1906), then spread to Croatia, Slovenia, and Czechoslovakia (1920).

But Pius XII accelerated the process; soon the vernacular was allowed in China, Japan, Indonesia, and India. Still, languages not based on the Latin alphabet.

But he followed that up by allowing French (1948) and German (1950) for all rites of the Church (such as baptism, confirmation, matrimony, and Extreme Unction, except the Mass.

In Mediator Dei (1947), Pius XII said that while Latin is preferred, he encouraged the use of the vernacular in all sacramental rites of the Church except the Mass, pending Papal approval, and he denied bishops or priests the authority to change the language on their own.

In addition to this, Pius XII dethroned the Vulgate (after close to 1,600 years) and recommended that Bible translations be made from the original languages. I don't think we appreciate just how abrupt and frankly radical this move was in 1943.

He was the first to allow parish priests to perform the rite of confirmation in most cases, with approval of the bishop.

He shortened the time of the fast before receiving communion to allow for evening Masses.

He began the move away from Gregorian Chant by saying the faithful should "fully participate" in the liturgy and encouraged the laity to sing hymns in the vernacular.


And most significantly, he radically changed the entire Holy Week liturgy: he changed the liturgical colors, changed the times at which the Triduum celebrations are to be held, moving Masses which used to be held in the morning to the evening, and changed the Paschal candle, among many other smaller changes.


And he made all these changes entirely on his own.

If Pope John XXIII is "the Father of Vatican II", Pius XII is the "grandfather"

[anawim]

I don't remember a vigil mass until I was in h. s. in the late 60's.
Shortening the fast to 1 hr. happened a few years before that.
I remember Gregorian chant well into the mid 60's.
If the Vatican allowed those changes that early, nobody at the parish level was paying any attention.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

I think a sizable portion of them are indeed not his fans.

[Doom]

I think a sizable portion of them are indeed not his fans.

I have heard of Radical Sedevacantists who think the last valid Pope was Innocent III (1198-1216)

[Doom]

I don't remember a vigil mass until I was in h. s. in the late 60's.
Shortening the fast to 1 hr. happened a few years before that.
I remember Gregorian chant well into the mid 60's.
If the Vatican allowed those changed that early, nobody at the parish level was paying any attention.

He didn't say don't use Gregorian Chant; he said you don't HAVE TO use it, which opened the door for its eventual disappearance after Vatican II, and even the "full participation of the laity" trope that the entire Novus Ordo was based on.

And if he started allowing the use of the vernacular for everything outside Mass, it only makes sense that the next step would be to use it in the Mass itself.

None of the reforms of Vatican II happened in a vacuum, almost all of them happened because they were trying to continue on the same reform path that Pius XII was already on

[Highlander]

All of this is new to me, but, reading it produced a thought.

I hold that an element of belief is beauty and awe. Thus, cathedrals, Thus, chant. Modernity seems, in the religious sense, to despise beauty and disdain awe. The one to one connection with the Holy appears to be some sort of threat; it is to be interrupted and replaced with the elements of whatever political or cultural bright and shiny current thing. But replacing the permanent with the impermanent only results in erosion and, eventually, destruction.

It can be fast, as in the mainstream Protestants. Or slower, as Doom seems to present.

[Riverboat]

I think a sizable portion of them are indeed not his fans.

I won't gainsay you, but everything I read from the Sedevacantists suggests that the Chair of St. Peter has been unoccupied since Pius XII. Or did I mistake him for Pius V?

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Sedes are a subset of Traditionalists.