After the foregoing I take it that many fair-minded Catholics are convinced that the ‘Tridentiners’ have not got much of a case, and so they would not expect to find any new and unexpected developments in the arguments from theology thrown up at the Novus Ordo.

In dealing with questions of theology it must be remembered that theology is not Faith. A ton of theology will not by itself produce a grain of Faith. Faith in the Catholic Church is a Supernatural, Infused, Divine Gift from God. Theology is human reasoning about God’s Gifts to man: Revelation. And so all it can do is to supply sincere people with good reasons to believe and to give support to the foundations of our Faith. Good theology makes one grateful to God for a growing understanding of one’s Faith. Theology depends very much on Catholic Faith. Without it, it degenerates very rapidly into humanism, getting lost in social engineering. But Faith does not depend on theology, but on prayer and penance and many (heroic) acts of Faith.

          What do we see happen, when ‘theology’ falls into the hands of the ‘Tridentiners’? We see it used for the exact opposite: not to support Catholic Faith in the Catholic Church, in the Papacy and in the Catholic Mass, but to twist that Faith in support of self-interest. To make good Catholics doubt and to make them follow private erratic opinions and interpretations. Theology was never meant for that, and for that very reason we should not be surprised that in the long bursts of invectives used by these dissidents, we find no theology and hardly - if any - honesty. Whoever wrote The Ottaviani Intervention wrote 27 falsehoods which will give him precious little for his trouble. With the best possible will in the world it is absolutely impossible to fit any reasoned theology into that diatribe. The effort was meant to inflame the passions and emotions.

• The Letter to the Bishops contains the same sweeping exaggerations by which the followers of Archbishop Marcel Lefèbvre have made themselves notorious.

• The third pamphlet distributed around Australia, denying Pope Paul VI the right and the competence to set aside the Tridentine Missal, is wrong in principal, and so no ‘theology’ so-called can rectify that. As we saw, Pope Paul VI had both the wish and the competence to set aside Quo Primum and he is supported here by Tradition and Canon Law.

• Which leaves us with the last pamphlet: Catholics, ask Questions!. The thing is so obviously partisan that the authors have allowed themselves to be carried away by their own propaganda, and in their indignation have completely forgotten the title. Instead of allowing us to ask questions, we are told statement after statement about which it is impossible to ask any questions, let alone theological questions ...

          Take, for example, their very first statement, meant to arouse our burning indignation, which would blind us so much that we forget to ask questions about it, but instead would hopefully induce us to tell as many other Catholics as possible: “The new order of the Mass was composed with the active cooperation of six Protestant clergymen”. This is a deliberate lie, calculated to do untold damage to Catholic minds.

          Amongst the scores of Catholic scholars we find five or six Protestant observers, some of whom were recognised scholars in their own field. The Holy Father never ever asked them: ‘Is this change protestant enough to your liking?’ Instead, questions like these may have been put to them: ‘Tell us from your own expertise, was this part of the liturgy used in the time of St. Ambrose, or in the time of St. Hyppolite?’ At least Michael Davies in his book Changes in the Mass has the belated decency to include at the end a brief note that Archbishop Bugnini categorically denies such connivance. But then, what is left over of the reputation of this Archbishop after the ‘Tridentiners’ got to town on him ... As we will see in the final Section of this paper: to give to the whole Church a revised Missal about one of the Sacraments involves papal infallibility, since it directly touches on Catholic Faith in a Sacrament. Therefore the miserable blowing-up-out-of-all-proportion of “Six Protestant Ministers taking over the Vatican to devise a ‘Protestant Mass’” is such a ludicrous red herring as to become wholly malicious and mischievous. Thank God the Holy Father had the foresight, under the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit, to ask these men along if only to show up the unbelievable pettiness of the fully-blown ‘Tridentiners’.

          The only semblance of an attempt at some real theology is found on pp. 5-8 in this circular where it tries vainly to come to grips with the change in the words of the Consecration of the wine from the Missa Normativa (or the Latin Novus Ordo) into various languages. This has already been dealt with more appropriately in the previous Section on Tradition, but I will review here with the use of some comments what the authors have to say on this. I quote:

“At the Last Supper Our Lord said that His Blood would be shed for you and for many ...” (my stress).

          None of the Gospels and none of the Letters of St. Paul combines together the words “for you” and “for many”. As we saw, it is not clear which exact words Our Lord used at the institution of the Blessed Eucharist in addition to the ones necessary for the form of the Sacrament: “This is My Body” and “This is (the chalice of) My Blood”. In the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark He is quoted as having said “for many”. In St. Luke’s Gospel He is quoted as having said “for you”. [See for more detail the previous Section, Argument from Tradition.

          St. Paul writes in 1 Cor. 11:23 sqq., quoting Our Lord as having said to him:

“For this is what I received from the Lord and in turn passed on to you, that in the same night that He was betrayed the Lord Jesus ... took the cup after supper and said: ‘This cup is the New Covenant in My Blood’. Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of Me.”

          There are no additional words added to the form of the Sacrament, that is, to the words necessary to confect the Transubstantiation of the wine. No “for all”, no “pro multis”, no “pro vobis”. It is impossible to either maintain or to accept that St. Paul received a lie from Our Lord ...

          I quote again:

“The words ‘for all men’ are not found in any bible ...”

          This is an obvious falsehood. I have already indicated some of the many passages in the New Testament where the doctrine of the universality of Christ’s Sacrifice, the shedding of His Precious Blood, is taught to us as a Revealed Truth, or Catholic Dogma.

“... or in any Christian liturgy anywhere.”

          This again is a falsehood. As I have already shown previously: it is clearly taught in the Liturgy of Pope St. Pius V, where it is not only taught by approved prayers and lessons ‘that Christ shed His Blood once for all men’, but where it is also clearly taught that the Sacrifice of the Mass itself is also offered to God for the forgiveness of the sins of the whole world. This dogma is denied by the ‘Tridentiners’. They hold that the Sacrifice of the Mass is only offered to God for the many who avail themselves of its fruits. So it was very timely that the Holy Father Pope Paul VI approved of means that would bring this frightful misconception to the surface, in order that it could be effectively dealt with. Every time the ‘Tridentiners’ hear the words “for all men” they get the jitters, like the old Jansenists whose heresies and misconceptions they have taken over. They deliberately and obstinately keep on ‘preaching’ to others what they believe themselves: that the words ‘for all men’ must always and everywhere mean only one thing: that all men are saved. Even if they reluctantly admit that it may be true in theory that Christ shed His Blood on Calvary for all men, they are adamant in their belief and teaching that the Sacrifice of the Mass is only offered for those who avail themselves of its fruits. Well, with all due respect, that would then exclude themselves ...

          Since the remaining of this pamphlet is only a boring repetition of the words ‘forgery’, ‘sacrilege’, ‘lies’ and the usual diatribe against the Church and the person of the Holy Father, I will leave it at that. The Holy Father uses ‘per tutti’, (‘for all’) when he says Mass in Italian.