The Year the World Ended

Hilary has a series of articles on 1968, the year of the great social revolutions worldwide.

See the article The Year the World Ended III:

October 24, 1967 - The new Mass was first celebrated in public in the Sistine Chapel on 24th October 1967 before the Synod of Bishops. Afterwards many of the bishops were very uneasy about what they had seen.

71 out of a total of 176 bishops present voted 'Yes' for the new rite.

The rest voted 'No' or had reservations.

The rest of the world's bishops were not given the opportunity of voting.

Cardinal Heenan addressed the Synod the day after the experimental Mass and said it was clear that those who had formulated it had never been parish priests:

"At home," he said, "it is not only women and children but also fathers of families and young men who come regularly to Mass. If we were to offer them the kind of ceremony we saw yesterday we would soon be left with a congregation of women and children."

The new rite of Mass was imposed generally upon the Church in 1969.

Cardinal Heenan was right. It led too many men to have scorn for the Church.