Reason 31

31. Because the New Mass follows the format of Cranmer’s heretical Anglican Mass, and the methods used to promote it follow precisely the methods of the English heretics.


Several issues arise with this objection. Firstly, the exact nature of the heresy of the Anglican Mass is left untouched. In modern times it is certainly clear that most Anglican liturgies are heretical in many wide and varied ways, but at the point of Cranmer’s writing the Anglican Church largely held to the ancient Catholic Beliefs with the main exception of the Papal Primacy. This of course made it’s presence known in the liturgy, but it was only a minor part of it. Thus it is quite conceivable that any similarity between the New Mass and the Anglican Mass is of things which are not heretical.

In addition, if the New Mass resembles the Anglican Mass, that is no indication that one was drawn from the other. Both of them have their roots in the Latin liturgy and both have access to the same historical documents. Because two cars both have four wheels and four doors does not mean on of the manufacturers copied the other, they both worked from the same source.

Further, the second half of this reason is almost nonsensical. I think the implication is that the revised liturgy is promoted in the same way as the Anglican liturgy was at the time of Cranmer, but I do not understand what is meant by ‘promoted.’ They may mean the way in which the change of liturgy was brought to people, but I am not sure there is another way other than to release a revised Missal. It happened following Trent as well. I cannot provide much more response to this as I do not understand it.

The truly absurd part of this objection is, to me, the idea that the New Mass follows the format of Cranmer’s Mass. Having perused the text of Cranmer’s revision, I feel it more closely resembles a vernacular version of the traditional Mass than it does the New Mass. There are quite a few major elements found in Cranmer’s liturgy that are in no way present in the revised Catholic Liturgy. Further, the Anglican Mass does away with many elements still found completely in the New Mass, such as the Confiteor and the intercessions to the saints.

I can find no good evidence to suggest that Cranmer’s liturgy found its way into the New Mass. The loosest bit of correlation therein proves to causation.