The first issue the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) looked at, and one that arguably had the most direct effect on the lives of individual Catholics, was that of liturgy. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium authorized certain changes to the Roman Catholic Mass, and with other reforms in the years that followed, dramatically transformed its appearance: the use of the vernacular, the altar facing the people, and in 1969, an entirely new rite known as the “Novus Ordo”, today known as the Ordinary Form, introduced by Pope Paul VI. It is not the purpose of this post to analyze every change made in the last fifty years, but rather to examine Sacrosanctum Concilium itself, and attempt to summarize the intentions of the Council Fathers who wrote and passed it.
The main purpose of this constitution fit into the larger purpose of the Council itself, as its first paragraph makes plain:
