"Numquam abrogatam - Never abrogated"

"Numquam abrogatam - Never abrogated" ."It is, therefore, permissible to celebrate the Sacrifice of the Mass following the typical edition of the Roman Missal promulgated by Blessed John XXIII in 1962 and never abrogated." (Motu Proprio, art. 1)

1) If the Tridentine Mass is never abrogated, it is still in force ever since 1969, when the New Mass was promulgated.

2) What legal force the Tridentine Mass had then, in 1969, it therefore still has today.

3) In 1570, Pope St. Pius V in "Quo Primum' had made the Tridentine Mass

a) a general (universal) law of the Church,
b) recognized it as an immemorial custom, and
c) made it a perpetual privilege. It means in short that the Traditional Mass now in 2008 is still what it was legally in 1969: the normal, ordinary, universal rite of the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, an immemorial custom and a perpetual privilege.

4) In relation to the Society of St Pius X: Msgr Lefebvre, in his historical sermon of June 29, 1976, summed up the pressure which had been continuously put on him, especially in the previous days, to abstain from giving any priestly ordinations on that day. "They put a new missal in my hands, saying, 'Here is the Mass that you must celebrate and that you shall celebrate henceforth on all your houses'. They told me as well that if on this date, this June 29th,, 1976, before your entire assembly, we celebrated a mass according to the new rite, all would be straightened out henceforth between ourselves and Rome. Thus it is clear, it is obvious that it is on the problem of the Mass that the whole drama between Ecône and Rome depends." (Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre, Angelus Press, vol. 1, p. 207)

http://www.sspxasia.com/Documents/Archbishop-Lefebvre/Apologia/Vol_one/Chapter_11.htm


5) Msgr Lefebvre refused to celebrate the New Mass, and hence he was "suspended".

6) In 1975, a year earlier, the Archbishop gave a sermon on the shocking similarities of Luther's Mass and the New Mass:

http://www.sspxasia.com/Documents/Archbishop-Lefebvre/Luthers-Mass.htm

And that's another reason why His Excellency refused the New Mass.

7) In Summary, Msgr Lefebvre was suspended because he refused to celebrate the New Mass. He had to cling to the Tridentine Mass, which, as Pope Benedict XVI said, is never abrogated.

If the Traditional Latin Mass was not abrogated in 1969 and was thus, still the ordinary rite of the Catholic Church upto now, 2008,

and if Archbishop Lefebvre was sanctioned in 1976 for ordaining priests, and later in 1988 for consecrating bishops— if both acts were done explicitly in relation to this Traditional Mass and for refusing to accept a rite which was only a derogation to the Tridentine Mass, then, by stating that it was 'never abrogated' the Holy Father is implicitly declaring that all the grounds for the sanctions against Archbishop Lefebvre and his Society of St Pius X are non-existant…

http://www.sspxasia.com/Newsletters/2007/May-Sep/Editorial.htm