Where did Mass “facing the people” come from?
From a reader:
I once wrote (by invitation) an article for a diocesan newspaper in which I mentioned, inter alia, that Vatican II never called for the priest to face the people, even though we have subsequently witnessed the virtual abolition of ad orientem worship. The local bishop pulled the article before the paper went to press and wrote me a private letter of explanation in which he said:
"I am going to put this on hold because there seems to be some great lacunae with regard to ‘Mass facing the people’ as it was sometimes called, that is, the Novus Ordo. [NB: This bishop simply assumes NO = facing the people.] I don’t understand how all of a sudden with regard to the Mass, the priests in the entire world could turn and face the people if there had not been some sort of Vatican legislation or permission granted to episcopal conferences for something which led the entire world to turn and face the people during Holy Mass. There seems to be a lacuna in this column. I think that without explanation this can cause grand confusion." [On the other hand, this bishop then based his own assumptions on another assumption he never really verified. That, in turn, became his law.]
This is indeed something I have always wondered about: how DID it happen that, almost overnight, ad orientem was thrown out and versus populum embraced? Can educated readers out there tell me the [1] basic history, [2] the key documents, [3] the permissions, etc.? In my opinion, versus populum is the single worst mistake that has ever been made in liturgical history, [Klaus Gamber would agree.] and so it seems very important that Catholics who are trying to "restore the sacred" should understand how this mistake could have happened in the first place. Otherwise I think we will have nothing intelligent to say when we are given the sort of response quoted above.
