SSPX Bishop: Top Vatican Cardinal Told Me the Novus Ordo Mass Is Defective

Dario, Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos was more than just a 'top Vatican Cardinal', he was President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei.

From LifeSiteNews

By Maike Hickson, PhD

Bishop Bernard Fellay of the traditional priestly Society of St. Pius X recently told an audience that in 2005, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, a top Vatican official, admitted to him that the Novus Ordo rite of the Mass was 'defective.'

Bishop Bernard Fellay, a bishop for the traditional priestly Society of St. Pius and the group’s former superior general, recently told an audience that in 2005 a top Vatican cardinal named Dario Castrillon Hoyos admitted to him that the Novus Ordo rite of the Mass was “defective.”

Speaking on October 12 to some 500 Catholics at the Angelus Press Conference in Kansas City, Missouri, the Swiss bishop discussed the topic of “God as Governor,” which was part of the larger conference topic on “Rebuilding the City of God in the Age of Modernity.”

The prelate’s overall theme was that one cannot build a true city without God. “If God is not edifying the house, those who work to build it, work in vain,” Fellay explained, paraphrasing Psalm 126 which starts with the Latin words Nisi Dominus aedificaverit domum, “If God is not watching over the city, those who do it, do it in vain.”

Fellay then looked at the relation between God and His human creatures, the latter of whom were created “out of nothing” in God’s “image.” He also stressed the “total dependency of man upon God,” and the mystery that God created us with free will while at the same time having “absolute power” over us. For example, “If God would – he doesn’t – forget us for one second, we would be back to nothing,” Fellay relayed. Our existence is a “continuous creation,” he added, emphasizing to the audience that every moment that we exist, God is thinking of us.

In this sense, even Satan’s power is “bound by God’s Will.” Evil, he added, is “only in the created world.” “The evil comes only from the creatures. On the contrary, the good comes from God.”

Bishop Fellay then went on to define the word evil as “deprivation of a good that is due.”

It was in this context that he started telling the story of his 2005 conversation with Cardinal Castrillon, as a sort of “parenthesis”:

“Once I was with Cardinal Castrillon who, in a first meeting in private, told me: ‘You know the Pope and myself we prefer the New Mass, we think it is more apostolic, but it is true, there is something that is failing and we need to compensate that with the appropriate catechesis,'” Fellay recalled of his conversation with Castrillon.

“A little bit later, I was in front of all the top guys of the Ecclesia Dei [Commission], and I told him precisely this: ‘Evil is the deprivation of a good which is due. You just told me that in the New Mass, there is something failing. You said it, it is evil.’ And he could not answer. He remained silent. And later – I know this from one of the secretaries – he said to them: ‘Why didn’t you come to my help when Bishop Fellay was attacking me?’”

LifeSiteNews sat down with Bishop Fellay after his talk, asking him for more details about his conversation with Castrillon. The bishop explained that this meeting took place in 2005 near Florence, Italy, in the Benedictine convent Santa Maria, during Pope Benedict XVI’s reign.

It was a meeting of representatives of the Society of St. Pius X and of the Ecclesia Dei Commission, which was then tasked with dealing with all the communities dedicated to the traditional Latin rite and Mass. Such meetings had started in the year 2000, Fellay told LifeSite. Explaining his English translation of that conversation, Bishop Fellay used the French term “defectif,” which translates to “defective,” for the cardinal’s description of the problem with the Novus Ordo Mass.

Cardinal Castrillon died in 2018. He had been the Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy from 1996 until 2006 and President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei from 2000 until his retirement in 2009.

It is striking that a high-ranking prelate would admit that the rite of the New Mass is “defective” and that one needs to compensate for this defect, not by returning to the traditional Mass, but by additional catechesis. Being asked by LifeSite for comment, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski wrote: “It’s quite unpastoral, when you think of it, to continue to inflict something defective on the people of God. I mean, would a mother put her child in a boat she knows is defective? Surely not.”

Kwasniewski, an accomplished author and liturgical expert, continued by referring to other prelates who have stated similar critiques: “Of course what Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos said would no longer seem striking to us today, since pretty much everyone admits by now that there are defects in the reformed liturgy – defects caused by the extreme haste of the process, by the suppression of key parts (including very ancient parts) of the Roman Rite, by the introduction of many options and moments for improvised comments (which Ratzinger considered a huge weakness), and more. We might consider how Cardinal Sarah, who once headed the liturgy dicastery, has pointed out many things lacking in the new rite, including the rich medieval Offertory prayers.”

Kwasniewski also looked back to the 2000s, when the atmosphere was still quite different: “Back in 2005, however, a statement about ‘defects’ in the new rite would have been a startling act of honesty from someone in His Eminence’s position, and an occasion of embarrassment to be sure, since officially no one was supposed to say anything negative about either the Council or the reforms executed in its name.”

However, Kwasniewski added, “what is interesting to me is that the current Vatican regime, under Francis, and with Roche now in Sarah’s former position, has returned to this intransigent, ideological stance, and we can only dream at the moment of an honesty like Castrillón Hoyos’s.”

But let us return to the Angelus Press Conference and Bishop Fellay’s talk on “God as Governor.” In his further remarks after the story about Cardinal Castrillon, Bishop Fellay rightly pointed out that “God is infinitely higher” than his creatures, that “he is so mighty” that He “always turns evil into some greater good.” Here, he reminded his audience of “the Cross as the key.”

While Our Lord’s crucifixion was the worst sin committed by mankind in history, the crime of deicide, God turned the event into “the highest good on earth,” our “Redemption.” For our part, we all are called “to bring forth fruit” and to “do our duty,” but at the same time we are totally dependent upon God. “Without Me, you can do nothing,” added Fellay, quoting Our Lord’s own words in John 15:5.

In light of the “terrifying” state of society today, Bishop Fellay reminded his audience of the goal of “restoring all things in Christ,” that is, restoring society with Christ’s Help and Grace. To work for the Kingship of Christ is the same work as that of leading man to Christ. Furthermore, the Swiss prelate continued quoting SSPX founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the “center of restoration” of our society is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, bolstering this point by quoting St. Padre Pio who said, “the world could exist more easily without the sun than without the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.”

All graces have been merited by Christ at the First Mass (Calvary) and “they are present at each Mass,” Fellay stressed.

He went on to describe how Archbishop Lefebvre, who worked as a missionary for many years in Africa, noticed how originally pagan villages were transformed into Christian villages by having a church constructed and Mass offered at the center.

So, while evil at times seems overwhelming, “God is the boss,” Bishop Fellay said, emphasizing that He “is in charge.”

At the same time, the bishop reminded us, we faithful can work for the restoration of Christianity and “for the Kingship of Christ” by our own sanctification, by “a life of penance, of sacrifice, of reparation” and by “leading a more intensely Christian life.” Those who live “in union with God,” said the prelate, “will bring much fruit, supernaturally and in charity, also for society.”