Weekends around here are usually pretty quiet. Let’s liven things up a bit. Let’s blog Karl Keating’s e-letter on the upcoming debate between Robert Sungenis and Gerry Matatics on the validity of the Novus Ordo.

Shall we?

Does the Novus Ordo Mass Fulfill Our Sunday Obligation?" That is the topic of an upcoming debate between Bob Sungenis and Gerry Matatics.

The debate is scheduled for October 1 at a yet-to-be-announced location in Southern California. If the venue has not yet been decided, that can’t be said for the divvying up of roles. Sungenis will argue that the Novus Ordo (the vernacular Mass attended by almost all Catholics nowadays) fulfills one’s Sunday obligation, and Matatics will say that it does not.

The very prospect of the debate has generated controversy in Traditionalist circles, with many people saying it will be a lose-lose event for their movement. Nothing good can come, they say, from having a prominent Traditionalist argue that the Novus Ordo is so defective that it does not even qualify as a legitimate Mass.

Is Matatics taking the negative in the debate merely as a courtesy? Apparently not.

A few months ago he began a lecture tour focusing on the vernacular Mass and the post-Vatican II revision of the rite of ordination. At his web site he refers to "the strong stand I’ve taken in my April talks against the New Mass and related issues–e.g., the new (post-1968) ordination rites."

At those talks he is reported to have argued that the Novus Ordo Mass is so defective (he calls it "a monstrosity") that it is invalid and that the 1968 revisions to the rite of ordination render that rite invalid as well.

This invalidity-of-post-1968 Orders trope isn’t new. I’ve heard it before.

Welcome to the Wild West.