The Flame Re-Ignites: Ad Orientem

The mind of the Council, of any council in history, is to be found in only one place: its decrees and documents. The Second Vatican Council did not countenance Mass versus populum or Communion in the hand and it if did, it would have said so, as it did with the possibility of limited use of vernacular languages in the Mass. We have seen that the old truism, give them an inch and they will take a mile, has operated with regard to the vernacular at Mass. Yet even without an inch being given by the Council Fathers, versus populum and Communion in the hand have become well-nigh universal.

Read whole post by Fr Hugh Somerville-Knapman OSB here.

Fr Hugh’s blog Dominus Mihi Adjutor. A monk’s-eye view of things.