The Roman Canon Was Supposed to Go Away

A lot of ink has been spilled over the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) and whether Traditionis Custodes might be modified under Pope Leo XIV. While not necessarily a partisan of the TLM—though I believe the Novus Ordo should be modified to adopt an ad orientem posture—let me share some tidbits of liturgical history regarding the Roman Canon that have analogical bearing on the TLM question.  

If you go back and read those who were writing about “liturgical reform” at the time and just right after the Council, you would have believed that, by our day, the Roman Canon would be long gone. However, if you visit a random set of Catholic parishes any Sunday morning, you’ll find Eucharistic Prayer I (the Roman Canon) alive and well, even flourishing.

The “liturgical experts” of the 1960s treated the Roman Canon as their poster child for all things wrong with the liturgy. It was repetitive. It was disjointed. It was “too Roman” and “too Latin.” Its structure was “incoherent.” Its translation would show its incomprehensibility to the modern mind in a vernacular language, especially without the benefits of translation “dynamic equivalence.” It was why the millennia old Canon had to be replaced by one (III) drafted by an Italian Vincentian and abbreviated by one (II) supposedly dug up from antiquity. The Bugninis of the world were even open to constant invention of new Eucharistic Prayers, which seemed to be a cottage industry in…you guessed it, Germanic Europe.

And, for a while, that happened. Pope Paul VI occasionally kept the Bugninis of the world on a tighter leash by putting an end to new Eucharistic prayers. Canon improv was also supposed to go away, though that is a more mixed bag. Catholics settled into a routine where Eucharistic Prayer IV was largely marginalized (its fixed preface limiting when it could be used, anyway). Back in the 1970s and 1980s, Eucharistic Prayers II and III dominated Sundays. At first, EP II gained popularity because it was quick: for all those who took “pastoral need” to mean “get this over fast,” EP II and hordes of Eucharistic ministers could get Sunday Mass out in, say, 40 minutes. 

It’s also why EP IV never “took off”—its formality might have made it more appropriate for peak liturgical times like Christmas and Easter, but its fixed preface excluded it. On the other hand, when it was useable in Ordinary Time, did you really want to “prolong” Mass in mid-July? With time, however, a resurgent sense that Mass really should not be rushed led to EP III being more used on Sundays.

And, all the while, EP I was making a comeback.

It made a comeback at first because its theology is clearly sacrificial. It served as a valuable counterweight to the Eucharistic informalism, even irreverence, that was pushed in some post-Vatican II quarters by the “Eucharist-as-meal” proponents. You cannot hear the words of the Roman Canon without asking some questions about that emphasis, especially when exaggerated.  

While it began earlier, by the 1990s and beyond Catholics were also beginning to ask of what parts of their cultic and devotional heritage had they been deprived due to the work of liturgical vandalism. Such questioning grew as people began comparing what Vatican II actually wrote versus what was done supposedly in its name. Interest in the TLM increased, along with friendlier approaches to it from Popes St. John Paul II and, especially, Benedict XVI.   By the 1990s and beyond Catholics were also beginning to ask of what parts of their cultic and devotional heritage had they been deprived due to the work of liturgical vandalism.Tweet This

But alongside that, younger clergy who were not necessarily longing for the TLM also took a second look at the previously maligned Roman Canon—and discovered its riches. It began being prayed more and more, especially on Sundays.

According to the leading lights of liturgical reform in the 1960s, that should not have happened. The Roman Canon should have been long dormant. It was, in fact, experiencing a resurrection.

Alongside those who questioned the dissonance between what Vatican II said and what was done in its “spirit,” people also began comparing the post-Conciliar liturgical books and discovering the typical edition had been deformed in English vernacular by “functional equivalence” translators. Dissatisfaction with the replacement of sacral language by the religious equivalent of “See Dick run! Run! Run! Run!” led to reform of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) and the systematic retranslation of vernacular liturgical books. Amid that spirit, the Roman Canon’s supposed “awkwardness” of syntax and expression suddenly became…less awkward.

I recount this history of the fortunes of the Roman Canon because it should inform our current controversies. I have no doubt that, had it not been included in the Novus Ordo typical edition, the Roman Canon would have been consigned to oblivion by the liturgical “reformers” of the 1960s. And, to be honest, absent the resistance of Pope Paul VI and some bishops who were never comfortable with tampering with the Eucharistic Prayer, might there not have been an effort to eliminate the Roman Canon?

It’s not a question of “liturgical positivism”—it’s OK because we kept it. It’s a lesson in how a mature reading of Vatican II, 60 years after its adjournment, will steer between the Scylla of “fidelity to the Council means unquestioning acquiescence in everything done in its name” versus the Charybdis of “we can turn the liturgical clock back to the 1950s and, with luck, even pass it off as part of Conciliar reform!” 

For those of us at peace with the Novus Ordo—aware of its problems—and accepting the Second Vatican Council as a necessary reform that was the work of the Holy Spirit, what happened to the Roman Canon (versus what was expected to happen) should be an illustrative lesson for how we can go forward at a time when the Council itself is—for most Catholics, including the pope—no longer personal experience but just a part of history.