Reports, officially unconfirmed, are circulating that some dioceses in the United States have prohibited celebration of the Novus Ordo Missae (NO) with a versus orientem posture. I offer some theological reflections:

1. Since introduction of the NO in 1969, the usual posture for celebration of Mass has been versus populum, “towards the people.” The posture for celebration prior to the NO was versus orientem, “towards the East,” i.e., facing towards the altar (which usually had an eastward orientation).
2. The change in posture resulted in changes in ecclesiastical architecture, the most prominent being the abandonment of fixed altars and the installation of a portable mensa (table top) in front of them. In older churches, the former altar stands as a backdrop; in post-1969 church buildings, the area behind the mensa generally is almost as bare as a Protestant church but for a crucifix (as opposed to cross minus corpus).
3. Other ecclesiastical architectural changes also ensued, e.g., the abandonment of pulpits, often in the middle of churches, in favor of an ambo within the sanctuary. Sanctuaries themselves then lost their physical boundaries, as many altar rails were torn out.
4. These changes were all justified ostensibly in the name of the “theology” of Vatican II, especially its liturgical theology for Eucharistic celebration. Some of that is true, e.g., if you intend to emphasize the unity of word and sacrament, readings should occur closer to the altar, and if you are reading to the people, not God, you might want to face them. Some of that is arguably at best a stretched interpretation of what Vatican II said to meet the preferred expectation of some liturgists. One can offer one’s interpretations what Vatican II does and does not require—I do so here—but one should not honestly claim the authority of the Council to enforce them to the exclusion of others.
5. Take Vatican II’s criterion for liturgical celebration: “active and conscious participation” by the faithful. I absolutely agree with that. What exactly does – and doesn’t – such participation entail? There’s a TikTok video (here) circulating on social media of a priest telling Catholics they should not return to their places after Communion to pray silently. They should instead immediately join in the Communion hymn in progress because that’s “active” participation. Really? It may be Padre’s (dubious) opinion, but a liturgical mandate (or even “best practice”) it arguably is not.
6. I am not interested in restoring the traditional Latin Mass (the TLM). I don’t attend a TLM and would oppose any effort to restore it in lieu of the NO. That said, I understand its spiritual richness and why some Catholics draw sustenance from it. I think the restrictive atmosphere of Traditionis custodes (coupled with its almost arch-zealous implementation by some bishops) is misguided and pastorally harmful. Nor are the TLM and NO polar antinomies: sixty years after Vatican II, can we ask whether there are things the NO can learn from why the TLM still speaks to the People of God?
7. Supporting the NO does not mean a thinking Catholic also does not and cannot see problems with it. Fidelity to Vatican II does not mean pretending it’s 1965 again (or that how we understood the Church of the first five centuries — the period many liturgists deem a “golden age” — stopped in 1965). Yes, we need to continue harvesting Vatican II but, after six decades, a living Church also has some historical perspective to assess and winnow what Vatican II did (and what was done in its name), recognizing harvests gather both wheat and chaff, the latter not stored in the Lord’s barns (Mt 3:12).
8. That the NO itself would benefit from using the versus orientem posture is not a rejection of Vatican II. It is a thoughtful question whether the liturgical harvest of Vatican II might be enhanced by that posture.
9. Let me be blunt: Underlying and running through many of these controversies is a postulate held by liturgists but not necessarily by the faithful at large that the centrality of the Mass as source and summit of the Christian life requires a laser-focus on the mensa and the action of celebrating Eucharist. Some liturgists are explicit about this as the theological mountain they will die on; I’m not sure the faithful are behind them on that via crucis.
10. The corollaries of that laser-focus has been — as I have written elsewhere (here) — that “Eucharist” becomes a verb, never a noun. The focus on the mensa is why the reserved sacrament was often shunted into some side alcove in the immediate post-Vatican II era and why worship of the Eucharist outside of Mass in many places suffered eclipse. The Eucharist as action is accentuated to the detriment of the Eucharist as an abiding reality even outside of and after the Mass. Hold that last thought!
11. A recent social media video (here) brought the consequences of that thought home to me. Its consequences are a cognitive dissonance many Catholics viscerally feel but many liturgists deny: the incoherence of contemporary ecclesiastical liturgical “interior decoration” and movements.
12. If the tabernacle has not been shunted off what remains of the former altar, people tend to genuflect when they enter the Church. But when the priest celebrates Mass at a mensa in front of that altar and tabernacle, his movements act as if there is nothing there. Why were we genuflecting fifteen minutes ago and now not? I’d argue this is the next instance of a deleterious phenomenon afflicting the Church today: “transitory sacrality” (see here). What is happening here? Is Jesus “looking over the priest’s shoulder,” waiting to transubstantiate Himself ten feet away on the table? The modern liturgist would say this is why we should double down on moving the tabernacle off the Church’s central axis. The modern Catholic might ask whether the liturgical ideas demanding such a move merit revisiting.
13. In the church where the tabernacle has been moved off the former main altar, people still tend instinctively to genuflect when they enter church and priests when they arrive to celebrate Mass. What are they genuflecting to? An anointed table? Is that the outcome of our “Vatican II-mandated” shift of focus in the Eucharist to celebration?
14. As a child, I remember the launch of the NO and, although I couldn’t put my finger on it back then, the cognitive dissonance of the new ecclesiastical “interior decoration” was jarring. The tabernacle seemed focal at some times but marginal at others. And the priest in the video above put it into words for me: “you’re blocking” the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. At least at some moments in the choreography of the NO, the preeminent visibility of the priest displaces the sacramental Christ. Prior to the consecration on the mensa, how does this make sense?
15. The modern liturgist might argue, “Well, but the focus is on the Eucharist being made present here and now!” Fine, but then is the reserved sacramental Presence of Christ an “onlooker” at the priestly action? And how, then, does this “here and now” celebration of the Eucharist fit into the one sacrifice of Christ which it is making again present? “Oh, that’s such physicalism!” Well, the liturgical “spiritualism” is arguably why Pew Research suggests most Catholics can’t explain and don’t understand what Real Presence means. “What matters is the People of God gathered to celebrate Eucharist!” Okay, but which is more important: the People of God or the God whose People we are?
16. Being a Catholic and a Slav, I perhaps have a greater familiarity with the Church’s Eastern tradition than many other Roman Catholics. The Christian East — those in and not in union with Rome — seemingly have no problem with holding two ideas together: that we can actively and consciously pray as a Church all turned towards God (even if the “Mysteries” are hidden behind an iconostasis). Are Eastern Christians any less “consciously and actively” participating in the Eucharist? Who wants to tell them that? Because either they’re wrong or our praxis is a choice (and, therefore, subject to evaluation for its adequacy), not an irrevocable norm.
17. Adopting the versus orientem posture in the NO resolves many of the cognitive dissonances current liturgical praxis has created: the foregrounding of the concrete priest celebrant; the at least occasional marginalization of the reserved Blessed Sacrament (either by relocation or “turning one’s back on it”); recognition of the perduring Real Presence of Christ in the reserved Blessed Sacrament after celebration of the Mass (and thus the importance of recovering that notion in Eucharistic theology and piety); an enhanced sense of sacredness in the celebration of Mass. Tackling none of these issues detracts from the “full, active, and conscious participation” in the liturgy Vatican II called for (though it might detract from how some liturgists want to interpret Vatican II). It would also defuse some of the tensions that come from Eucharist as verb versus noun.
18. So, do we simply keep “receiving” Vatican II (through its 1960s interpretations some liturgists demand) or do we receive it by pondering our experience of it through a sense of the faith that seeks to sustain the continuity of how we celebrate the Eucharist with how our brothers and sisters in the faith have done so before and handed it on to us (Jude 1:3)?