Reason 40

40. Because the New Mass has eliminated such things as genuflections (only three remain), purification of the priest’s fingers in the chalice, preservation from all profane contact of the priest’s fingers after Consecration, sacred altar stone and relics, three altar cloths (reduced to one), all of which “only serve to emphasize how outrageously faith in the dogma of the Real Presence is implicitly repudiated.”* (Same citation as #3).


First, a lesson in definition: to eliminate means to remove entirely. Thus when “only three” or “one” remain then it is not eliminated. But eliminate is a much more potent word than “reduction.”

Further, the altar stone and relic are still required. They have simply been ignored by many who construct new churches. Thus this list can be shortened to purification and preservation of the priest’s fingers. However I have seen many priests purify their fingers in the New Mass exactly as I have seen others do it in the traditional Mass, so it seems perhaps only the preservation from profane contact remains (and I do not doubt there are priests who refrain from profane contact).

Secondly, it is a stretch to suggest the ‘elimination’ of the altar stone, relics, and altar cloths is a repudiation of the Real Presence. The first two seem most perfectly revealing not of the Real Presence but of the Heavenly Liturgy. The third, as far as I am aware, has no relation whatsoever to the Real Presence. There may be a good liturgical connection, but since it is completely lost on me (a pretty serious amateur liturgist) the reduction of altar cloths would in no way harm the laity’s belief in the Real Presence.

It is true that belief in the Real Presence has decreased, but this is clearly the result (or mostly the result) of poor catechesis. Many teachers of the faith either refused to teach this belief, explicitly taught it wrong, or touched on it only briefly. The New Mass itself is not at fault. Further, many (if not all) of these things do not exist at all in the Eastern Liturgies, liturgies which are as ancient as the traditional Mass and just as venerable. Belief in the Real Presence is not locked into a small subset of actions and items, to be implicitly repudiated by the alteration of four things.