In 1969, “A Short Critical Study of the Novus Ordo Missae” was published with the signatures of two powerful cardinals, Bacci and Ottaviani. Nicknamed “The Ottaviani Intervention,” it quickly become a classic, and has never gone out of print.
But… where was its companion volume? You know, the one about the other six sacraments?
For, indeed, the reform of the Mass was accompanied by a profound overhaul of all the other sacraments – baptism, confirmation, marriage, holy orders, penance, and extreme unction (the last two renamed reconciliation and the anointing of the sick). And the changes to these were no less profound, no less meaningful, no less consequential.
Understandably, debates about liturgical reform have coalesced around the new missal for decades, since the Eucharistic rite touches the lives of Catholics more than any other. Yet if the new rite of the Mass deserves criticism for its diminished signification of the Church’s faith, the same holds for the new rituals of the sacraments, which were produced according to the same assumptions and principles.
Esteemed liturgical theologian Fr. Claude Barthe confronts this question in his short but potent work, “The Seven Sacraments, Past and Present: A Short Critical Study of the New Rituals.” Fr. Barthe takes up particular points of comparison between the old and new rituals, looking to the matter and the form (the elements used, the words spoken) as well as the ceremonies surrounding them.
Did the effort to “adapt the rites for modern man” end up diluting and dissipating the very faith they were supposed to express more effectively?
In this well-documented book, Fr. Barthe helps readers to see why a coherent defense and practice of tradition must reach beyond the Mass to embrace all of the Church’s rites – at a time when some are seeking to rule out the very possibility of doing so. The Roman Rite, he explains, is a unified world of prayer, and its components should not be arbitrarily divorced. If the traditional Mass deserves to be honored and prayed in our churches, the traditional form of each and every sacrament should be given no less honor and be no less readily available.
Perhaps in time, this book, too, will become famous, and people will start speaking of “The Barthe Intervention”!
Be that as it may, Os Justi Press is proud to present its English edition to the world. I encourage tradition-loving Catholics to take up this brisk and battling book. Find out why it caused a firestorm upon its 2025 publication in France. Consider gifting it to priests you know who love the Mass of the Ages but may not yet fully understand how it is integrated harmoniously into the larger whole of the Roman Rite.
